U.S. Adult Obesity Rate Tops 42 Percent; Highest Ever Recorded
prnewswire.com
prnewswire.com
At the same time, most travellers will tell you the food was delicious. This may be good for keeping customers happy, but it's going to tend to mean things that our hunter gatherer ancestors wanted to stock up on, in quantities they would rarely find.
Finally, sweets and junk food in America are like crack. I don't know what they put in it, but just about everything in that category is more enticing than the same categories in Europe.
My brother had a six pack before he moved there. Now he has a beer belly.
Sometimes I still like to eat out, but it's a rare treat, I can't do it every day like I used to when I was younger. Even then, I'll usually look for the junior portions, which are plenty filling.
Americans love bulk purchase discounts. Contrast that to time I spent in France where seemingly invariably larger packages would cost more per quantity than smaller ones. Seeing that did weird things to my brain.
Do you generally have doggy-bags (leftovers carry-out) outside the US? The portions sizes are large for a few reasons: 1) pricing needs to stay high as rents are still high or the restaurant will fold (most do anyway). 2) people often take leftovers home
So you pay higher prices for more food, and a 2nd (or sometimes 3rd) meal at home.
I think the bigger issue is that due to sprawl and walk/bike-unfriendliness, people take their cars everywhere. As a part of COVID restrictions my family has started using bikes to things we would normally get in a car for - e.g. get takeout or library - but most people don't.
[1] https://www.frenchtoday.com/blog/french-culture/french-doggy...
In most places I'd say you can get a doggy-bag, but unless it's because your kids won't eat, you won't. Unless you're going to take-away most of the meal, you probably won't need a box. People do sometimes not eat everything, but there's not a lot of point in saving two or three bites.
My sense is that most restaurants in the US could just charge more for the same, and people would just pay it. Perhaps the doggy-bag thing has changed expectations so that won't work, who knows.
I'm not sure cycling is going to fix obesity. If you're getting a meal that's 2x what it's supposed to be, which seems to be what happens in the US, and a normal meal at a restaurant is maybe 1000-1500 calories, cycling isn't gonna be enough to help you. For reference I can do maybe 10 calories a minute on my elliptical, and I can hold that pace for maybe an hour. And that's some workout, quite a lot harder than a bike ride.
Agree, but it helps. You can burn a few hundred kcal everyday with light exercise which helps to maintain a healthy weight. But of course, no realistic amount of exercise will help to compensate for a junk food diet (especially if you're already overweight and unable to exercise safely).
ETA: and they have free samples :)
Statements in this vein get made quite a bit. But, as someone who lives in the US and (normally) travels around Europe quite a bit, I'm at least a little bit skeptical. Certainly when I'm eating out in Europe I don't think to myself "My, what small portions." (Admittedly, in the US some meals come with a lot of cheap carbs like potatoes but that's hardly unknown in Europe in my experience as well.)
>Even the strawberries seem to be bigger.
That's mostly industrialized farming for you. If you buy locally grown strawberries in, say, New England in season, they're both much tastier and smaller.
Last time I went to london though, the obesity problem was looking bad.
One other point I want to make is that young people in europe do tend to look healthier than young people in america, I believe the food quality and standards/lower supply of fast food franchises helps alot. Quick food in europe tends to offer healthier and higher quality options.
>could it be that city life is more conductive to staying thin
Maybe? I'm not sure most people walk enough in a city on a day-to-day basis going into an office to really move the needle. And they're probably eating out more and cooking at home less than they would if they had to hop in a car and drive somewhere. Which certainly can lead to eating more than you want.
Indeed, some parts of Europe do have obesity problems too. England obviously, but France is catching up. Junk food is getting increasingly pervasive. I think we're just lagging 10 years behind the US but we're getting there.
They are literally engineered this way and companies spend billions on the process.
Everyone should read the book Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us (2014)
https://www.amazon.com/Salt-Sugar-Fat-Giants-Hooked/dp/08129...
This is because Americans will typically drive to the supermarket and can carry a lot of stuff home, while Europeans will take public transport or walk, and can't carry as much.
Additionally houses in Europe are a lot smaller and they just don't have room to store so much, while in America houses tend to be larger (at least if you're not in a dense city).
If anybody in the US thinks like you, we shouldn't have a problem with weight. After my dad passed away from a massive stroke, my revelation is that to combat obesity "you could eat most food, in reasonable amount, exercise wisely". I say most because for people with pre-existing conditions, some kind of food you are to avoid.
I'm tired of all of the diet tricks out there. At some point, my weight is going back up again. But, for the last year or so, I eat less meat/dairy and more of the veggie/tofu. I lost 10 lbs and still maintain that weight even though I did not skip or fast any meal. I reckon that if I reduce my intake, I could easily lose another 5 lbs. My family doctor approves!
There is a very unhealthy mentality in the US that exercise is the cure for obesity. It's easy to point out the flaw in this with simple math: count how many calories you burn running 3 miles or doing power lift, then compare to that of what you get from 2 slides of pizza or a big mac and you know what I mean. With our excessive food portion, you would need to run a marathon a day to keep up with the calories you take in.
After my dad died, I changed my diet. I ate a lot less, measured myself each day. When my cousin died, I moved more towards veggies. I'm 10kg down from the start of the year now.
Vegan diets are also easier to stay on, IMO. It fills you up to eat a load of broccoli or beetroots, but it's barely any calories. You also poop better, which is a strangely positive thing. As for taste, it seems to change when you know what killed your family members, and you get a bit more sensitive to the things you're not getting so much of, like salt and fats.
I do exercise regularly, but like you say there's no way that can be enough, you'd have to be doing professional athlete level workouts for it to matter. It's more that it's important to keep the muscles and skeleton used, and get the heart pumping. There's also the psychological effect, it feels good.
They don't put sugar but some sugar-like substance. They can get away by calling it sugar nevertheless. Run this simple test - go to an Indian store & buy Cadbury's Milk Chocolate. This is the Cadbury's not manufactured in America, but imported from India. Now buy the same Cadbury's Milk Chocolate from the Candy aisle in any American supermarket. That's the garbage made right here in USA by Hershey (which owns Cadbury). The taste is different. The calories are different. The effect is different. And this isn't just me - a ton of people know this:
https://www.businessinsider.com/cadbury-chocolate-different-...
Agreed. My wife and I typically get an appetizer and split a dish at restaurants. In lieu of having to pay for another meal we typically tip nicely.
Fascinating.
A distinction that doesn't really matter right?
In one example, I think it's good that clothing websites will show people in their clothes that look like their larger customers. I think it's good that this is less jarring to see due to prevalence alone. There was little utility for the polar opposite at size 0 and size 2 to model for everything, aside from overvaluing the addictiveness of frustration.
It still remains accurate to point out the health issues associated with obesity and the folly of remaining in that state.
I think it does, because it's more insidious than any sort of active movement. Are websites showing plus sized models because they want to be body positive or just because that's who research shows buys their clothing.
> It still remains accurate to point out the health issues associated with obesity and the folly of remaining in that state.
Absolutely - it's a danger, I'm not saying it's not.
My point is that you can change the narrative of a movement much more easily than you can change how a society as a whole unthinkingly deals with something. A deliberate normalization has a voice which can change what it's saying, this phenomena really doesn't.
I think websites are showing plus sized models because the movements told them "look at your customer analytics instead of assuming the status quo of people imagining they'll look like size 0 models when they wear this"
It is all very interrelated from my perspective.
If I did have an opinion I would say that a more collaborate and holistic approach with a movement's narrative is possible and necessary. For example, if some people to go to the extreme of wanting magazines to make disclaimers that models are photoshopped to help people in all BMI ranges have higher self esteem, then people normalizing unhealthy but common BMI ranges should also have disclaimers about the issues associated with remaining in that state.
There is a scientific consensus that being obese reduces your life expectancy.
This is obviously a very delicate issue. We surely don't want people to be shamed or ashamed for being overweight. Nothing good comes from shame.
But there is serious mortality and morbidity associated with obesity. And as a society, we don't seem to have much of a problem shaming people who fall into other risk categories such as smoking or drug use.
While this may seem harsh at a surface level, are you really sure nothing good comes from shame? Is shame always an unhealthy emotion to experience? It seems to me that it is effective in focusing attention on potential personal misjudgement or misbehavior, and can strengthen resolve to break bad habits or otherwise ensure a better outcome for oneself going forward.
But no emotion is inherently destructive. We should feel shame at certain things. If you tripped an old lady and didn’t feel shame, I’d say you were a psychopath, or if you simply threatened to kill anyone who you didn’t like.
It’s also notable that absence of shame is characteristic of psychopathy, and even Buddhist psychology states that an absence of shame is an impediment to enlightenment.
I completely support the idea that excessive or inappropriate shame is a major part of many if not most psychological disorders. Nothing supports the idea that all shame is destructive.
On the topic of obesity, I do agree that shame is unlikely to help. In fact I suspect that shame is more likely to be part of the cause.
For a behaviour trait to exist in species far from each other in the evolutionary tree suggests there is a real survival benefit to having it.
Doesn't mean it is beneficial in all cases, or that it doesn't feel shit though!
Many people call that shaming. This distinction isn't as clear as you suggest.
Do we? Society as a whole benefits from shaming alcoholics, smokers, people who beat their kids etc.
You're right, the science refutes being fat but the parent was wondering if any science supports being fat.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2020/09/14/912029399/we-had-to-take-acti... (NPR: 'We Had To Take Action': States In Mexico Move To Ban Junk Food Sales To Minors)
The same can be said about most western Europe countries, yet they still have obesity rates above 20% compared to 4% in Japan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_r...
>But do go on about fat shaming being effective.
It looks like the most likely explanation here.
Why not? It works. Are you more concerned with someones feelings than their heart health? When they pass at a young age will their loved ones at their funeral think "wow, at least nobody ever hurt their feelings"?
Have you got some evidence for that because it sounds dubious to me.
The more people are exposed to weight bias and discrimination, the more likely they are to gain weight and become obese, even if they were thin to begin with. They’re also more likely to die from any cause, regardless of their body mass index (BMI).
Fat shaming is also linked to depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, eating disorders and exercise avoidance, Alberga said. There’s emerging evidence that the severity of harm increases when people internalize weight bias and turn it on themselves. In one study, participants with high levels of internalization of weight-bias had three times greater odds of having metabolic syndrome than those with low levels, even after controlling for BMI and other risk factors
There is also a huge difference between sharing candid concerns about someone's weight when you already know them and can be somewhat compassionate about it and shaming a random person you don't know.
There's a lot of middle ground between body shaming and telling people with a BMI of 40+ that they are "fine the way they are", I think.
While it may not be an effective means of changing their behavior it is a valid means of framing conversations around what is desirable and healthy. If we continue to allow peoples feelings about how they feel override what we objectively know to be good we will be on the fast train to hell.
“Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been.” ~ Marcus Aurelius
This is a weird trope. Most models are selected to be slender so they can, basically, simulate a clothes rack. No curves to draw attention!
I'm not sure the fashion industry is telling anyone this is ideal. I can't remember, in my lifetime, when skinny models were ever really looked at by society-at-large as the "right" body type. They were always seen as "skinny models". Of course there are people with all sorts of preferences, but the most celebrated models of my youth (say, Heidi Klum or Tara Banks) were relatively fit as opposed to withering.
On the other hand, many people (both men and women) end up with eating disorders trying to reach this "ideal".
But we do have to recognize the effects that are also had on people, your last sentence is a heavier weighting than your perception.
People have not been capable of separating an industry ideal from a non-industry related attractiveness ideal.
Individuals know what they like, visually and sexually. Individuals are also aware of what the seeming consensus of "should like" is, visually and sexually. Simple put, people know when other people are considered hot and what that looks like.
When such a large portion of the population is overweight it tends to indicate a systemic problem rather than one of individual choice.
My point here though is that it’s only a minority who “can’t help it, they were born that way”. Most would be able to overcome this issue if the dynamics were different.
I see the body positivity movement as just trying to reconcile that reality. If you are already obese then you might as well try and find a way to live a happy life because you are probably never going to be slender again.
There's no problem to solve other than being more cognizant of the costs obesity will impose on one as an individual.
Now run the numbers again with socialized healthcare. When society's tax dollars are funding your triple bypass from your 30+ BMI it's absolutely societies business.
The "obese-normalization" you speak is about fat-shaming abolitionism, against discrimination in professional and social spaces because of body composition, not that such a body type is necessarily encouraged.
Furthermore the categorization of "obese", and BMI in general, has a pile of research exposing all the caveats and encouraged more granular diagnoses around mass composition for humans. You can be categorized as obese and have perfectly fine physical function. For example, pretty much every football player is overweight, most are obese. BMI charts are only a cursory step towards a proper analysis.
If you understand that obesity comes from a medical or mental condition, then a culture of fat-shaming is comparable to having a culture of shaming those suffering from PTSD or depression or birth abnormalities, et al. That sort of culture doesn't have many positive societal effects beyond pushing people into mental duress about things they are still trying to figure out how to manage. Any hyper-normalization of extreme obesity is a side effect of the propensity of such a shaming culture as it becomes more of a political statement than a medical one (or more fringe culture i.e kinks).
Being against removing this discrimination from our culture only makes sense if you believe that an effective methodology for overcoming a health problem is by being abused by society into action conformity.
Simply, if you're too fat you should be allowed to deal with that very personal issue on your own terms and not be ostracized from professional or social spaces.
The main aspect is a demonization of fatty foods, propagandized heavily by the sugar and soft drink industry, which market realities have shifted food products to compensate for the lack of flavor and satiation from fat by loading them with sugar. This is all compounded by massive corn subsidies in the US making it extremely tempting to load up recipes with cheap, sweet, calorie dense, corn syrup. (some random chart after quick search about this https://imgur.com/nvWRyrh)
Everything in this HuffPo article rings completely true for me -https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/everything-y...
The part about how 12 states have averages above 35%... didn't make sense to me if the national average is 42. Maybe I missed something.
[0] https://www.helgilibrary.com/indicators/rice-consumption-per...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_r...
Also, a note: not everyone can eat a meat-heavy diet. I cannot. I don't have a gall bladder - like many others - and cannot digest the fats well. Eggs are too much sometimes.
Not only that, but you can eat perfectly healthy without actual meat. Low quality foods - meatless or not - generally have a lot of empty calories and aren't very filling, making it easier to gain weight.
I would argue that the answer is the nutrient to calorie ratio. Many nutrients for few calories is good, but few nutrients for many calories is bad. By this analysis, plant-based food is "low quality" and animal-based food is "high quality".
So if calories are what make you gain weight then it makes sense that people following a plant-based diet would gain weight compared to people following an animal-based diet because they will need to consume more calories to acquire the same amount of nutrients.
The main reason folks lose weight on meat-heavy diets is because they tend to eat less and therefore eat fewer calories. But there is more than one path to eating fewer calories. Lentils and beans tend and some vegetables tend to be rich in fiber, which keep you full longer and tend to mean you eat less. Not to mention that a plate full of vegetables and beans tends to have fewer calories than a plate of meat - and hold a variety of nutrients as well.
You are correct when you state at the beginning of your second paragraph that people on meat-heavy diets tend to eat fewer calories. But you are incorrect when you state at the end of that paragraph that a plate full of plant food will have fewer calories than a plate of meat. If this were true, then people on meat-heavy diets must not be finishing their plates of food, since they end up consuming fewer calories.
As for your own diet, it's a good thing you have the eggs and cheese in there! That's where your vital nutrition is coming from. The rice and beans and veggies are just keeping you alive with calories but not carrying their weight in terms of nutrition. You could be doing worse, such as eating a bunch of bread and pasta, or even worse than that, soda and candy, but you could also be doing much better by eating mostly steak and sardines.
* Not being sure that the next meal is coming means you have to pack on some lbs to reach the point where you can go a few days without a square meal.
* The not actually getting the next meal makes you ravenously hungry when it comes even if on average you're overeating. It's why people with EDs aren't automatically skinny -- if you restrict and then binge you can/will gain weight.
https://www.strongerbyscience.com has an article somewhere on this, and it's not well tested yet, but we're starting to see some scientific evidence to back this up.
The question is whether the effect is large enough to actually matter. And maybe it does, maybe there is a magic diet that allows you to eat well above your TDEE without gaining weight but nobody has found it yet.
This is a very bad meme. There's many factors that influence how much weight you may gain besides calories consumed. At the more obvious end of the spectrum, if you eat corn, and poop out undigested corn, that's definitely not a calorie nor a calorie nor a calorie.
Every diet that’s effective is CACO. Use whatever structure you need to actually accomplish it. If it means no carbs, vegetarianism, Atkins, WeightWatchers then good on you. Calorie tracking is a bitch and if you have a rule of thumb that works for you then enjoy it.
For what it's worth, here are two peer-reviewed articles that contradict that idea. The thermodynamic truism that "a calorie is a calorie" is true because it's a tautology, but misses the point almost entirely.
EDIT: "a calorie is a calorie" is about as useful and relevant as saying "the key is to earn more than you spend" in the context of trying to save money, or raise yourself out of poverty. Technically absolutely true, but woefully unhelpful.
---
1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5639963/
"Diets high in protein and/or low in carbohydrate produced an ≈2.5-kg greater weight loss after 12 wk of treatment. Neither macronutrient-specific differences in the availability of dietary energy nor changes in energy expenditure could explain these differences in weight loss."
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2. https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/79/5/899S/4690223
"Over a million calories are consumed a year yet weight changes to only a small extent; there must be mechanisms that balance energy intake and expenditure. As obesity reflects only a small malfunctioning of these mechanisms, there is a need to understand the control of energy balance and how to prevent the regaining of weight after it has been lost. By itself, decreasing calorie intake will have a limited short-term influence."
#1 agrees with me!
Their entire theory is that different macro balances lead people to eat less because they're more satiating. Which is true but doesn't contradict the point that the actual thing that matters is CICO. Certain diets may make it easier or harder in terms of willpower but it doesn't change the underlying forces.
#2 agrees with me too! That abstract is criminally misleading.
> We conclude that a calorie is a calorie. From a purely thermodynamic point of view, this is clear because the human body or, indeed, any living organism cannot create or destroy energy but can only convert energy from one form to another. In comparing energy balance between dietary treatments, however, it must be remembered that the units of dietary energy are metabolizable energy and not gross energy. This is perhaps unfortunate because metabolizable energy is much more difficult to determine than is gross energy.
and
> Of course, the increased energy expenditure associated with increased protein intake also does not violate the laws of thermodynamics, because the energy is conserved. It does, however, come close to the spirit of the argument that a calorie is not a calorie, because feeding diets that induce a difference in energy expenditure can introduce a difference in energy balance and thus a difference in weight loss. Of the macronutrients, only protein has been found to have this effect, but the magnitude of this effect is small and perhaps accounts for a 0.8-kg difference in weight loss between diet treatments over 12 wk
If this is your argument then we're just arguing semantics. The only thing that matters is energy expenditure and total metabolized energy intake (which is CICO!). Like people already understand that our bodies metabolize foods differently (like the meme about celery being negative calories) but broadly following the standard nutrition info is a damn good proxy on average for metabolized energy.
> is true because it's a tautology, but misses the point almost entirely.
I think it's meant to drive home the point is the only thing that actually matters is total energy expenditure and calorie intake. If you're not losing weight you need to eat less and exercise more and vice versa if you want to gain weight. There's really nothing else to it. Every diet just provides some structure that makes the process easier since our bodies don't like it.
It's not though. That's not what the papers are saying. They're saying a calorie is a calorie. But calories turned into long term fat reserves are not equal to calories put in mouth - calories used in exercise. You can change the outcome of your diet by changing the composition of your diet while holding total calories the same.
* total energy intake and expenditure are the only things that really matter for weight loss
* for some foods, there is a difference between the nutrition info listed calories and the metabolized calories
Which implies what you're saying. If you play with your diet you can potentially keep the nutrition info listed calories constant while reducing your "real" energy intake.
This feels like semantics because all you're really saying is that commonly understood nutrition info is inaccurate (which is true -- hell nutrition labels are allowed by the FDA to be off by 20%). In a perfect world with perfect information counting calories would be counting metabolized calories. But unless you're raising cattle on narrow diets the problem ranges from hard to impossible for real food. So the normal calorie counts that dieters use acts as a proxy and if done right, a rough upper bound.
This is the crux of what I think misses the point so entirely that you might not see it: "the point" is to figure out how to lose weight (and keep it off while being healthy). Beating on the dead horse of thermodynamic laws is utterly irrelevant to the question of which macronutrients have what effect on body fat and bodyweight.
As I wrote in my edit, "a calorie is a calorie" is exactly as useful as dieting advice as "just spend less and earn more" is useful budgeting advice. The advice-giver can feel satisfied that they've emphasized a physical-mathematical truth, without realizing that they haven't actually done anything to help.
Well yeah, and finding a good macro balance is huge positive for your overall health. But beating the dead horse of technicalities about how our bodies metabolize different foods a little differently is utterly irrelevant to the question of how much energy am I intaking (and metabolizing) and how much am I expending which is the only thing that has any meaningful effect on body fat and body weight unless your already fit and doing athletic training.
There's lots of good advice on dieting: eating high-volume foods, keeping track of satiation, staying hydrated, eating slower, staving off cravings by not quitting foods cold turkey, focusing on exercises that have a good kcal/time ratio, understanding the process model for self-control and managing your willpower. But all of it has the singular goal and of making net calorie expenditure positive and what tricks and rules of thumb that work for people is personal and situation dependent.
Telling someone to adjust their macros as dieting advice is setting them up for failure unless you happen to already know that the result of their adjustments will put them in a deficit. It's really hard to help people who are doing some diet like keto, aren't losing weight, and end up frustrated because "it's supposed to work." But when you estimate their TDEE and count their calories the problem becomes super obvious.
In the dietary sense, calories are NOT equal. It's easy to change a person's body mass by changing their diet while keeping calories the same. Mixing simple carbohydrates with fat is an effective way to get our metabolism to generate body fat. Simple carbohydrates in general, really, since our body is forced to process them into fat quickly or else our blood pH reaches harmful levels.
Repeating "a calorie is a calorie" is harmful for people considering their diet, and a truism if you're speaking to a physicist. In either case, not helpful.
I do not deny that it is probably possible to min max your diet and exploit some of our bodies weirdness. But on a macro scale none of that shit matters. If you run a caloric deficit it literally does not matter in the slightest what your body does to the food: it can store in fat, it can burn it immediately no matter what your body is still going to have to burn all of its reserves to operate.
The first line states: "The U.S. adult obesity rate passed the 40 percent mark for the first time, standing at 42.4 percent"
Then just a couple of paragraphs later: "Mississippi has the highest adult obesity rate in the country at 40.8 percent and Colorado has the lowest at 23.8 percent. Twelve states have adult rates above 35 percent."
It is impossible for the national obesity rate to be 42.4 percent if no state has an obesity rate above 40.8 percent.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/05/the-messy...
p26 answers a question I had:
> WHY ARE REPORTED NATIONAL OBESITY RATES HIGHER THAN STATE-BY-STATE RATES?
How is it that only 12 states have adult obesity rates exceeding 35 percent, yet the national obesity rate is 42.4 percent? It’s because state obesity rates are from the BRFSS, which collects self-reported height and weight. Research has demonstrated that people tend to overestimate their height and underestimate their weight. In fact, one study found that, due to this phenomenon, the BRFSS may underestimate obesity rates by nearly 10 percent.256 NHANES, from which the national obesity rate is derived, calculates its obesity rate based on measurements obtained at respondents’ physical examinations. Accordingly, the higher rates found by NHANES are a more accurate reflection of obesity in the United States.257
And when people wonder what I mean: I tell them "Its like the Freshmen 15, except its the weight gained from COVID19 lockdowns".
Although more seriously, when I gained ~5 lbs, I started to eat healthier, and shed that weight back down to my normal <180lbs. For 5'10, I'm still slightly overweight by BMI (and I'm not very lean or strong, so I doubt its muscle).
I would love to see stats on weight change over the population.
The only positive difference I can identify is that I eat out 0 times a week now instead of 2-3.
1) Structure: it is way too easy to get food that is horrible for you. Not only that but in a way which you can eat it in the car on the way when you are only "slightly hungry".
2) Commercial interests: Go into a Walmart and pay attention to the organization. Everything which makes you fatter (and therefore consume more) is directly in front of you and on the end of the aisles. You need to search for the healthy food, and for some reason in my experience their limited produce selection seems to spoil faster than other stores (how can my bananas be green and rotten at the same time?)
3) Rewarding excess: It is in vogue to be wasteful. Being able to live in excess and be wasteful is very popular in our culture this is not limited to food, just look at the flatscreen TV count in houses, large inefficient cars and houses, etc.
4) Exercise as an excuse: "I have a gym membership, I went this week...so I can eat an extra 3000 calories today" That coupled with the lack of walking from the car culture and you have a very low rate of calorie burn vs intake.
5) Sugar substitutes: Why does everything need sweetener? Does this sweetener have effects we don't know about? There have been studies that say it also causes obesity and diabetic issues. It is very common for people in this country to drink several "diet" sodas a day and using that as reason to allow themselves to have extra dessert/sweet things.
Just my observations, also, I fall into the overweight category even knowing these things and making efforts to not continue the path which I was brought up on. If I had not made an effort to change diet and exercise...who knows how big I would be.
6) Emotional support. I see less and less large people out and about and more mostly attractive people hanging outside over the past decade. I have to wonder if this is in part due to social media:
a) Less attractive people feel like they deserve less social status (not sure if this is a USA-specific cultural thing but it's definitely a thing here)
b) Because of point a, spend more online because of the heightened feeling of not deserving of making friends
c) Social media is absolute junk, the more time you spend on it naturally the worse you're going to feel
d) Feedback loop of spending more time online, feeling bad, spending less time outside with physical contact causing worse physical health, causing even more time spent online, repeat for decades
More attractive people are naturally going to feel more deserving of love and emotional support and more likely to seek it out because of our culture, despite really we should all feel equally deserving of love and support. But this feedback mechanism I think exists breaks that feeling of deserving mental/physical fitness which is causes awful mental/physical fitness.
Second, we need better food labeling. "Serving size" is too arbitrary. Instead use ratios: ratio per N calories, and ratio per weight. That way we can easily compare across product types. It can be worded as "X units per N calories" and "X units per gram", or the like. The units would be standardized.
Third, include percent of whole-ness of grain. It's hard to know otherwise. We need to eat more whole grains, but 100% is not very tasty to most such that a mix is decent compromise. But we need better numbers to know the mix percent.
In Europe labels need to have nutritional information using standard units (e.g. 100g or 100ml). It seems very odd they don't require that in the US too.
Global push-back on Investor-State Dispute Settlement seems to have throttled it's growth, and I don't quickly find any cases on food-health regulation (though there's little transparency on threats of cases).
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/07/health/obesity-chile-suga... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/11/chiles-drastic... paper: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/16/health/brazil...
Seems like this must be different (or old) data by State?
> How is it that only 12 states have adult obesity rates exceeding 35 percent, yet the national obesity rate is 42.4 percent? It’s because state obesity rates are from the BRFSS, which collects self-reported height and weight. Research has demonstrated that people tend to overestimate their height and underestimate their weight. In fact, one study found that, due to this phenomenon, the BRFSS may underestimate obesity rates by nearly 10 percent. NHANES, from which the national obesity rate is derived, calculates its obesity rate based on measurements obtained at respondents’ physical examinations. Accordingly, the higher rates found by NHANES are a more accurate reflection of obesity in the United States.
https://www.tfah.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/TFAHObesityR...
People are either doing no physical activity, or they're doing triathlons.
People either have multiple degrees, or they didn't finish high-school.
People either buy a house in their early 20s, or they're renting all their lives.
People either read a book a week, or they never read a book at all.
(Obviously there are practically many people in between these extremes and people are free to do whatever they want and many people are happy and successful on both sides of each of these spectrums.)
It's anecdotal evidence, but as a European frequently travelling in the US, I do have a hard time finding what I consider healthy food. I usually skip one meal each day and still put on weight. I suppose that if you're really careful and cook your own food at each meal you can get by, but all the incentives are there for you to eat a lot, and a lot of junk food.
I travel a lot in the US too though (as an American) and I've rarely (in cities) had much of an issue finding restaurants I consider good--though I'm not sure most meals I get on the road really qualify as "healthy" day after day either in the US or most other places. And, certainly, if you're looking for something quick and easy, that's probably going to be some fast food franchise. I almost universally avoid but that assumes putting some time and effort into finding better places when on the road.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5896802/#:~:tex....
If you are 1.70 m and have a BMI of above 30, your weight is more than 86.7 kg.
For obese people who are 1.80 m, your weight is more than 97.2 kg.
42% is an absolutely insane number of obese people - what on earth is going on?
They're classifying obesity as having a BMI >= 30.
https://www.tfah.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/TFAHObesityR...
Page 8 defines "Overweight" as BMI 25+ and "Obesity" as 30+.
Also, things like how when people develop type 2 diabetes, the solution is often getting them on expensive insulin that causes weight gain, causing more insulin need, causing more weight gain etc. Look up Dr. Jason Fung for detailed information on how the typical approach to diabetes management actually just makes it, and weight gain, much worse.
Speaking of healthcare in the US, even for those who can afford a doctor -- I personally have gone to the doctor when I had unexplained blood sugar drops and weight gain despite being active (training for a century ride at the time), counting calories and eating the oft-touted '5 small meals a day'. They scoffed at me, told me they 'couldn't give me a pill to make me thin,' told me my habits were fine and I should keep doing what I was doing. As it turned out, and I learned through my own research, my frequent eating was causing me to become insulin resistant, and once I moved to 2 meals a day and a longer fast overnight my issues reversed. From talking to others there was nothing unusual about my experience with the doctor -- in the US obesity is considered a moral issue and not a health one, and our doctors have very little to offer in terms of advice based on the underlying mechanisms of obesity or taking patients seriously when they are concerned about weight gain.
We have all sorts of other things contributing to causing metabolic issues in the first place -- our poorly regulated food and ag industries have been pushing completely warped ideas of what makes a 'balanced' diet for decades -- e.g. milk and empty carbohydrates are 'a balanced breakfast,' the low fat fiasco where processed foods with reduced fat and increased sugars were touted as 'healthier', and for decades kids were taught in school the 'food pyramid' which was a suggested diet written entirely by agriculture lobbyists rather than the available science on nutrition.
We have an entire populace who, if they know anything about what is actually healthy for humans, came by it through having to seek it out themselves and wade through a lot of junk science sponsored by various corporate interests.
Also we are stuck in cycles of constant work, presenteeism and long hours in sedentary jobs, no sick leave, little if any vacation, etc. etc. where Europe etc. have much better work practices, not to mention less car culture, walk and bikeable and transitable cities, all things that are aggressively opposed in the US.
The problem is fueled by a number of systems. Imagining it to be a matter of simple will power or portion size is inane.
For example, when I diet and reduce weight, I gain it back in few months. May be I am meant to be at the higher weight. Many say that greedy corporations have set up the numbers for diabetes and it’s okay to have higher A1C.
You're of course free to do what you want, but being overweight leads to health problems that you wouldn't otherwise have.
A carnivore diet that avoids plant-based foods altogether is ideal for human health and is almost impossible to remain obese on.
For faster or more thorough weight loss cut out dairy as well. Find more information at https://MeatRx.com/
> MeatRx.com
Those are some bold claims. Curious if there's any actual science supporting not eating plants.
In fact, entire human societies have survived for generations on entirely animal-based diets but a human being cannot even survive on a diet devoid of animal-based foods (vegans have to supplement or else they die).
There is a list of books here: https://meatrx.com/resources/books/
I personally find the writing and lectures of Nina Teicholz to be especially compelling.
Not all of the resources I pointed you to are about ketogenic diets, though -- some are about carnivore diets. For instance, there are the books of Vilhjalmur Stefansson who lived for years on a meat-only diet and was monitored at Harvard while on this diet.
Nina Teicholz also provides a phenomenal tour of the literature and demonstrates that a lot of the science does in fact support a carnivore diet. You should look up some of her phenomenal lectures on YouTube, or read her book The Big Fat Surprise: https://www.amazon.com/Big-Fat-Surprise-Butter-Healthy/dp/14...
If you would like to contribute to getting more research done on the carnivore diet, then you can donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/carnivore-research
I'm also not really sure why I would donate money to a cause I do not believe in/that is not backed by science.
The problem with plant-based foods is that they contain fiber and a bunch of anti-nutrients but the ketogenic diet permits this. Once you cut out all plant-based food then you experience the wonders of an elimination diet -- because you have eliminated anything in your food that you might have a mild allergy or reaction to.
Things I noticed when I went carnivore were: improved skin, improved nasal breathing, cessation of heartburn, improved bowel movements, dramatically fewer bowel movements, weight loss and muscle growth, a complete cessation of farting/gas, more ear wax, less joint pain, less water weight (because no carbohydrates), more stable energy and mood, and probably a couple more things I've forgotten.
It is true that there are not a lot of studies that have been performed on the carnivore diet. But beware that human nutrition is almost impossibly difficult to do large randomized controlled trials on. This is simply an extraordinarily difficult area in which to get the science right, which is why the US dietary guidelines are such a bunch of crap and we've ended up with an obesity epidemic and chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease absolutely rampant.
There is one way in which you can perform elite nutrition science, however -- you can experiment on yourself. I urge you to try a carnivore diet for six weeks and just observe the results. Stick to steak, eggs, sardines, fish, bone broth, beef liver, and ground beef. Avoid dairy and don't drink any calories. This is an extraordinarily difficult diet for people to follow for some reason (because they are carb addicts) but it is nutritionally overflowing and you will see dramatic effects if you stick to it.
I am asking you to support this claim with science-based research, that explicitly studies the differences. The rest of your post is mostly just noise if that research isn't readily available.
I am more than aware of the troubles of doing legitimate scientific research at scale on diet. And yet, you yourself were able to provide scholarly articles on the benefits of a Ketogenic diet.
I have done both carnivore and generalized ketogenic diets in the past. I am also an extreme skeptic at fad diets like the Carnivore diet. I've yet to see a single piece of legitimate evidence to suggest that the Carnivore diet is anything more than a Joe Rogan-backed ketogenic diet.
> I have done both carnivore and generalized ketogenic diets in the past.
> What's the downside to eating nothing but eggs, sardines, and ground beef for six weeks?
Probably wasting six weeks of my life eating an unnecessary and suboptimal diet, for starters.
When you eat a steak almost the entire steak is absorbed into the body -- there is no indigestible fiber and other gunk that needs to be pooped out.
If you quit plants cold turkey and immediately switch over to a high-fat meat diet then you will have to prepare yourself for about a week of runny stool as your digestion adjusts. It's not a big deal and once you're in the clear it is smoother sailing than you knew was possible.
It is noteworthy that India has a massive problem with diabetes and also has the lowest life expectancy in the world.
India is 145th out of 201 nations measured [1]. Not great, but it's not the lowest as claimed.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...
I get it, you're trying to sell individuals on a red meat fad, but as a national strategy it's senseless.
Whole grains, fruits, vegetables (and sure meat too) are time and time again show to be healthy components of the human diet. Just cutting out the sugar, white flour, and trans fats will take you a long ways.
And I'm not sure why you think whole grains have "time and time again" been shown to be healthy components of the human diet. In fact, we have known for hundreds of years that grain-based human societies have suffered shorter stature, more disease, and more dental cavities than hunter-gatherer societies.
The ancient Egyptians, for instance, had lots of heart disease, as we can detect from their mummies, and they had an agricultural civilization based on grains grown in the Nile delta.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/surprise-ancient-inu...
And the Masai, another population eating an animal-heavy diet.
https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-abstract/95/1/26/167903
All the examples of exceptionally long-lived populations we have (the so-called blue zones) have a plant heavy (but not vegan/vegetarian) diet.