The Obesification of the U.S.

ive seen a few wrote:

I will add the fall of social institutions like churches and the rise of isolation, loneliness and depression. Even arts programs like marching band, dance, and theater would have people moving around more but have been cut.

+1, especially now with covid

1 out of 4 18-24 y/os have considered suicide in the past two months.

Let’s have a bit of perspective: would you prefer to live in a society with too many calories or too few calories? This is a NO-BRAINER!!! Here is an excerpt from a Swede during his childhood during a famine in 1868:

We often saw mother weeping to herself, and it was hard on a mother, not having any food to put on the table for her hungry children. Evacuated, starving children were often seen going from farm to farm begging for a few crumbs of bread. One day three children came to us, crying and begging for something to still the pangs of hunger. Sadly, her eyes brimming with tears, our mother was forced to tell them that we had nothing but a few crumbs of bread which we ourselves needed. When we children saw the anguish in the unknown children’s supplicatory eyes, we burst into tears and begged mother to share with them what crumbs we had. Hesitantly see acceded to our request, and the unknown children wolfed down the food before going on to the next farm, which was a good way off from our home. The following day all three were found dead between our farm and the next.

You're right the only choices are overconsumption and underconsumption. It is impossible for people not choose to consume the proper amount despite excess being available.

We should all make an effort to be morbidly obese because at various points in human history people have starved.

KaareV wrote:Michael Moore ougth to make a movie called: Fat Country with the subtitle Why I am so fat.

There are a gazillion why we're fat documentaries, but there are only two kinds:

- it's all a meat conspiracy and the only answer is veganism

- it's all a grain conspiracy and the only answer is low-carb

You have to choose. Those are your only options. Either way it's a big conspiracy and the only answer is to cut out an entire food category that's been eaten by billions of non-obese humans for millennia.

Not sure where you are from but you are obviously not well traveled. I am and can attest that people all over the world have gotten FAR fatter than they were thirty years ago. I can also attest that eating garbage food is ubiquitous the world over. I've seen it and experienced it with my own eyes. There is some sort of species-wide epigenetic change that has occurred. I said it upthread but will say it again. If you told almost anyone before 1900 that a major problem in the world in 2020 would be the ubiquity of large quantities of cheap calories, they would NOT have seen that as a problem. Our entire species is changing, for better or worse.

KaareV wrote:

USA is the fatest country, by far. Leading the way amongst the western countries. It has to do with class, poverty, education. Calorie input and calorie output. People die of Covid-19 because they are fat. But that's not on the agenda in the American news. It is fat, it is sugar, it is protein. And lack of exercise from the early childhood. It has to do with digitalisation and entertainment. It has to with healthservice, with schools and parents. You are worst and you don't even reflect why it is so. Michael Moore ougth to make a movie called: Fat Country with the subtitle Why I am so fat.

KaareV wrote:

USA is the fatest country, by far.

Even excluding Pacific island nations, Mexico is worse.

I agree that obesity is a problem. However, it is a GOOD problem to have, given the alternative! The fact that we have excess calories for consumption is actually a sign that our society is doing many things right with regards to growing and distributing food to people.

Your standard: "obviously not not well traveled". You don't know that do you? Just making assumptions without evidence. Never mind, I have been places that few people would like to be. But never mind, you are using anecdotal evidence. WHO has pretty good statistics, and the obesity problem is far worse in US, due to what I mentioned. Though, you are right; there is an obesity problem, but to a lesser degree her in Europe, but it is diverse. Had it been just garbage food ... then it could have been solved to a certain degree. The epicegentic changes, not proven in this context, might then be bigger in the US. There are epigenetic changes, for sure, but not to the extent that "our entire spescies are changing". If I am wrong, please give me references. And then I will accept that I am falsified, the popperian way.

Hot take: the default result of laziness is weight loss. If you can't be bothered to get food or make food, then you'll waste away into nothingness. Neither does "unhealthy" food cause weight gain any more than "healthy" food does; it depends on how much you eat. Like, if I eat a big mac 3 meals a day, I will lose weight because they are 563 calories each. Sure, I'll be unhealthy, but I won't be obese.

Anyway, I think obesity is a non-issue. "Body positive" people can stop claiming it's healthy and "fat shamers" can stop shaming them. Nobody is obligated to look after their own health, and neither is health necessarily a life pursuit. It's all subjective and everyone can have different life priorities.

Pajac wrote:

Too much meat, fat and sugar.

Especially meat.

Meat.

Oh, the meat.

OP, tell us how amazing you feel at 64, please. We have never heard it before.

And don't forget to call me vegan :D

100% agree

But I don't need to hear again who great he feels.

The body mass index, in and of itself is a gauge, but like all gauges, the margin of error can be narrow or wide based on the data being evaluated and how complete it is.

It is, therefore, for men and women, also important about the body morphism and the waist to hip ratio to be able to know muscle displacement and percentage.

I'll give an example. At my current weight today, my height is 5'8 and I weigh 179.

This puts my BMI at 27.28 ....ok. I can accept this.

However, in a further evaluation, in 1996, I was 144 pounds or a good range of 21.94 BMI. When I was at that weight, my waist size was 32. Now, it's 34-35 depending on type of clothing....by the measuring tape, it's about 34.5. Gaining 35 pounds usually would lead to a much larger waist than 2.5 inches.

So what then? Let us look at the hip ratio. My waist/hip ratio is roughly 34.5/39.8 or a .867 ratio which is out of the high risk section for men...0.9 or higher is high risk.

So then, we take body fat percentage. Mine, as evaluated by a physician was in the high end of normal but still normal.

Then let's look at muscle density. The bulk of my muscle is concentrated in my legs, which can press a few hundred pounds.

One could not possibly and realistically calculate an obesity percentage that fits a prescribed norm, because once you factor in all of the other variables and then introduce genetics, itself as a factor to body predisposition, you can't possibly have a suitable gauge for anything at that level.

Keep in mind, that at the standard of this BMI model, former NFL Wide Receiver Mark Duper would have even been considered overweight. Really?

Yeah..not buying your information on this study.

No.

And by the way, no.

Stoppit Smith wrote:

The body mass index, in and of itself is a gauge, but like all gauges, the margin of error can be narrow or wide based on the data being evaluated and how complete it is.

It is, therefore, for men and women, also important about the body morphism and the waist to hip ratio to be able to know muscle displacement and percentage.

While it is true the BMI index is flawed, it is a relatively steady way of measuring things. One thing it doesn't take into account is that it makes taller people seem fatter, which could have a very minor impact on the country-wide numbers over the past 40 years.

However, you imply that it is inaccurate because you have put on a lot of muscle elsewhere... that may be the case for you, but it is certainly NOT the case for America as a whole. On a population level, an increase of muscle mass is likely a negligible (or non-existent) explanation for the increase in BMI averages.

Not even me...

If the study was correct, Mark Duper, at 5'9" 185# would have been considered overweight.

Let's use Duper..with career PRs of 10.21/20.77 at 100/200

5'9" 185

BMI....27.37

I'm a fatter 5'8" 179 than Duper was at his prime.

And my BMI at 27.28 is less

If you can't explain that about me vs. Duper than forget it.

That's how arbitrary it is.

No way I was ever fitter, faster or slimmer than Duper.

The Meta-level driver for the obesity pandemic is the overlapping profit interests of Big Ag, Big Food and Big Pharma/Big Health with their loyal cohort Big Government and their loyal side-kick Big Media/Social Media. In particular, the subsidization of wheat, corn and soy have provided a dirt cheap substrate with which to get people to become addicted to weaponized food products and require extensive health care and medication on their way to an earlier grave (don't kill the Golden Goose too quickly). The perfection of food addiction (ideally with meal macronutrients of 44% cheap carbs, 44% cheap seed oils and 12% poor quality protein) has been as much by empiricism and market feedback as by any widespread conspiracy. All the residual death, suffering and dysfunction (including mental illness; witness our politics right now) is just another profitable side-"benefit" of a corporatized food and health system.

Whether you are vegan, carnivore or in-between, realize that we (and you if you dare to look deeply into it) up against a massive massive force entity. The fate of the human race itself hangs on this issue.

Plus, while you are all infusing your advice in the room, in the last 6 years, I have only seen one American make a mark while not in an elite race, competing against elites in an elite setting. Micah Tyhurst's 14:42 in Carlsbad in the regular men's 20-29 race still ranks at the top of great performances by a rising elite.

Unless you did what Tyhurst did, it's not worth the ink.

You're not qualified nutritionists.

sugar tits wrote:

The "1980" point on the graph is actually from the NHANES 1976-1980 survey, with midpoint year of 1978-- two years before the Guidelines were published.

(actually, the Atkins books were published before the guidelines)

An anecdote about Atkins.

Somehow, because I moved to Europe, I missed the Atkins revolution. Around 2005 I was visiting my family in the US, and became intrigued by this "new" low-carb diet and the controversy it generated.

I started reading the book, while at the same time, I had ramped up my running before my first marathon. By the time I finished, I had lost 3 kilos, so had no interest in doing the diet -- my interest was purely academic. I quickly realized that everyone who advised against the diet really had no clue what the diet was. The Atkin's book has a chapter dedicated to the top-10 mistakes, and most of the people I spoke with who tried and failed committed one or more of these mistakes.

I took the message from Atkin's that food in America contains too much processed sugar and flour. It doesn't seem all that controversial to cut out Pringles and Doritos and sandwich bread and food packed in preservatives. I drew the line at beer. My takeaway was slightly different, combining exercise with carbs with the advice to "burn all the carbs you eat". This avoids the cycle of excess carbs, followed by excess insulin, followed by storing carbs as fat. This seems achievable combined with other sensible diet advice like avoiding processed preserved foods in favor of fresh foods without having to count grams of carbs or calories.

I read another article once profiling a math major who wound up in the health industry and was asked to build a math model of contributers to obesity. When asked what was the single most factor contributing to obesity, his response was the shift in policy of farm subsidies.

It used to be the government paid you not to grow certain crops, as part of a global management strategy to avoid flooding the market and allow farmers to make profits while ensuring adequate, but not excess, food supplies. Then the policy shifted to governments subsidizing excess food supplies, ensuring low cost excess food for the public, and no loss to the farmers (well, big corporate farmers).

rekrunner wrote:

An anecdote about Atkins.

The latest book I read on diets, which I'm surprised got little coverage (or maybe I missed it), as it seemed like a sensible approach to weightloss that works with your body to convince it to burn fat without sending signals that you are starving (triggering what I call hibernation mode).

This is Haylie Pomroy's "Fast Metabolism" diet. At the risk of over-simplifying it, it is repeated cycling of:

- 2 days of high carbs/nutrients (send a signal to the body that "spring" is here and you are not starving) + a little aerobic exercise

- 2 days of low carbs (when you body starts to release fat for energy because it is not starving) + strength training exercise

- 3 days of a healthy mix (Mediterranean?) where you burn the released fat

The failure of most diets is restricting some category of food, that works in the short term, but not in the long term.

What mades sense (to me) with this diet is that you don't cut out any single category for that long (2 days), and it works with your bodies triggering natural hormone production and fat burning without stress and starving.

rekrunner wrote:

The latest book I read on diets, ...

Another recent book I read was "Why diets make us fat" by Sandra Aamodt.

It is filled with many historical examples and long term research showing how restricting calories (starving yourself, as happens in famines) increase stress hormones, lower metabolism and sends signals to our body to conserve energy for future "famines". Some effects last a lifetime, and can even span multiple generations. They even followed how starving during pregnancy impacts the growth of children.

Apparently your body has a natural target for ideal weight, and starving yourself tells your body to reduce your metabolism in the short term, and recalibrates your ideal weight target to something higher, to be better prepared for the next starvation period. Apparently this is not reversible, and the amount you can safely lose by starving yourself without triggering this recalibration is not that much (I forgot exactly but maybe 10-20 pounds).

Regardless, the best advice is still the same: eat healthy with moderate exercise.