2/3 of American adults are overweight. Why is this just accepted?!

It makes sense to ask oneself that question about the minority who REALLY want to lose weight but still really struggle. But there is obviously a huge range of "not wanting to be fat," ranging from REALLY not wanting it, to.....Uh, yeah, I guess it would be nice to be thinner. There are simply too many people in the US on the ho-hum side of that distribution.

And got it, it's hard. And probably harder for some than others. On the one hand, I picked my parents fairly well in this regard, and I know that I'm at least somewhat lucky (on top a life-long like for an aerobic activity, running). On the other hand, I know that if I had insisted on eating as an adult anywhere near to as I had through college, I would EASILY be dozens upon dozens of pounds over what I am now. It sucked when I realized in my early 20s that I couldn't eat whatever I wanted and keep a flat stomach (and reasonable definition, and....). I got used to it, somewhat, but I'd still like to do that again. I don't. LOTS of people do, obviously.

And I'm not a guy (loser) who runs around crying, "Freedom," but.....the idea of legally limiting the availability of food (lots of which tastes REALLY good!) because my fellow undisciplined Americans can't watch their diet......uh, just not crazy about that. I won't die, but......

So when you walk around you go americans are in good shape and BMI is wrong or do you go we are a bunch of fatties? Nobody thinks that BMI is perfect on an individual basis. The limitations are well known. It serves it's purpose as a quick screen and to measure populations.

Seriously we aren't talking about 15-20lbs here. We are talking 40lb+ in a most cases and it isn't too shocking to see someone pushing 100+ when your out and about.

It is that classic combo of poor diets and no exercise. Eating normal food (meats, veggies, and even starches) it is realitvely hard to eat 3k+ calories per day. You need all the sugars and high fats to get up there.

It is actually not that hard. But it is hard when the basic diet instruction from the government is so messed up, plus bombarded with commercial messages that are bad. Plus so many interest groups dedicated to not giving good information. Plus so many stumbling blocks if you live paycheck to paycheck or not even that. The food pyramid is hosed. Banishing fats is hosed. While Snickers(tm) has too much fat, sugar, and salt to be a regular go-to, the idea that a high protein snack, with a little fat, will satisfy your cravings is sound. Stress eating is a bad habit. It is a psychological addiction, not a physical one. So it takes some work to break the habit, but we're looking at 2 to 3 months of coaching, not residential rehab. Eating right is not that expensive. 1 lb bag of fritos is $4 at Shop Rite. McD's Quarter pounder with cheese, around $3.79. 2 lb bag of Cal-Organic baby cut carrots is $3.50 at Fresh Direct. Trader Joe's sliced grilled chicken, something around $7 per pound. Those are two healthier items, not low end, ready to tear open and eat, better if you have at least a cube fridge to store. If you can't scrape together the $100 for the fridge, life is harder. And if your local convenience store just stocks impulse items, life is harder -- of course, they carry that because that's what sells.

I do not agree but below is the why of this.

This is accepted because its all part of the American Dream. You can live the dream when you have enough money to buy and consume some type of food to eat whenever and whenever you desire. And those foods are always available and easily accessed near where you live. No more hunger pangs for most.

Unfortunately sugar and fat in various forms are relatively cheap, people like them, and they are sold in gas stations, hardware stores, vending machines, everywhere.

The USA is the land of the free and the home of the brave. People have a right to eat whatever they want, whenever they want to, and in whatever quantities they want. People can bravely balloon up to 600 lbs or more, or choose to restrict/reject/regurgitate food as they wish.

They are not directly hurting you or the country much, and its their right to eat and weigh as much as they want.

You can not shame, shade or discriminate against the hefty folks because some just can't help it- claiming its a genetic or medical condition.

People have the freedom to weigh as much and look anyway they so choose. Being overweight is a freedom similar to freedom of speech, freedom of religious preference, or freedom to identify as any gender you wish.

I've always wondered this. When I'm out on a run I often pass women so fat they take up the entire width of the path and I have to step onto the road to pass them. How can their poor heart cope pumping blood around such an unhealthy body?

For covid, a disease which kills a minority of very old and very frail people with mutiple health conditions, we'll force the world into lockdown.

For obesity, which kills millions upon millions of otherwise healthy people, and drastically lowers the quality of life of billions, we won't lift a finger to do anything about it and if you dare to suggest that someone goes on a diet or joins a gym you're a 'horrible person' and a 'fatshamer'... if this weren't reality we'd laugh at the concept of it.

So why don't they have the 'freedom' to go wherever they want and ignore lockdown restrictions? You say that it doesn't affect others if you're overweight but that's absolutely false. If you're overweight and have kids your kids are sighnificantly more likely to be overweight themselves. Also you're significantly more likely to get sick and take up a hospital bed, alse using up the hospital's resources and the staff's time.

Also 'some can't help it' isn't even an opinion it's just a false statement. You gain weight if you consume more calories than you burn, and lose weight inf you burn more calories than you consume.

It is appears that most of you anti mask people are for big government. You want a big government to coerce overweight people to lose weight. Some of you even are complaining because you feel that you are being prevented from shaming overweight people. It is good that many of you are coming clean and admitting that your big government complaints were always a sham and a smokescreen.

Time for a Fat Tax or something like Japan's Metabo Law

America's fury wrote:

Easy times makes soft people. ..

The exact opposite is the case.

Look up study after study showing direct correlations between obesity and forms of childhood abuse, and particularly sexual abuse.

This is true of most addictions, of a host of depressions and anxieties as well. Abused people suffer and often look for something, anything, to make themselves feel differently.

It's beyond sad reading thru posts here. People with issues such as obesity or addictions, etc are struggling .. or at the least were struggling and that's how they got there.

I don't know how to resolve these issues, but I do know that battering battered people isn't going to make their lives any better or their struggle any easier. But it sure seems to make a whole host of you folks feel better about yourselves.

Think of weight classes as a hierarchy - obesity is one step up from starvation. Starvation is closer to death than diabetes. If you wish to raise the cost of living, and starve people through artificially raised prices on select products into eating healthy, good luck with that policy fight.

This also turns into a blue collar vs. white collar debate - if you have had multiple back and knee surgeries from accidents or frequent heavy lifting at work, you aren’t going home to start your Iron Man training like a desk pilot. You aren’t hiring a personal trainer to fit into spring break bikini if you can’t afford airfare, or work hourly/contract and don’t have PTO.

Part of it is having no way out. And that everything is so commodified when it needn't be.

If people want to lose weight they'll join a gym and weight watchers. At the gym they work out inside, on a treadmill, on a elliptical (because of their "knees"), and lift weight. And then the rest of the their life is exactly the same. They will drive to the gym, to their groceries stores, to work ect. And who can blame them? In terms of getting around a lot of the US is not a pleasant place to ride a bike, or go for a walk.

People would rather build home gyms that going to work out in the sun and breathe in fresh air. Would rather lift weights than carry their groceries home for two miles.

Then at weightwatchers or WW, they will get frozen. meals, or the points system will be marked to ready made meals, sauces, pastas, foods, bagged salads, take-out foods ect. If you make your own mean, you need 15 minutes to just enter it on the app to get all the ingredients and the point value. Products and ready made food are more familiar than real foods.

And so much idiocy regarding healthy foods. People will buy egg whites in a carton instead of actual eggs (trust me, this is not sold in Europe at all), food is described as protein. Diets like the Atkins or Keto diet completely warped healthy eating for everyone. If I talk to my friend and he wants to lose weight, he now thinks he needs to eat meat and sausage.

My sister will ask me if I ever made a vodka pasta sauce (never heard of, and I was in Italy quite a lot), but when I ask her to pick up some tomato passata, one of the most basic whole ingredients she doesn't even know what it is. (Tomato passata is just general pureed tomatoes you use to make a sauce).

Bread has been demonized because the bread available in most places is absolute garbage. It's soft, made with a ridiculous amount of ingredients baked in a factory days ago and sold in a plastic bag. If you want a healthy bread then you go for whole grains, sprouted or protein bread.... but it's a pain to find a real bakery and buy a delicious fresh crispy sourdough loaf in the morning (usually something in Europe people walk to, it's awesome to get up walk and get fresh bread for the family, some bakeries start selling before the sun rises). And then when you mention you eat bread you are considered a demon-umm no I eat bread, real bread made with four ingredients, with flour milled from a farm 10km away... no a 20 ingredient wonder from dempsters that lasts for week. And no wonder you think you have a gluten allergy, I'd think so as well if that is what I ate.

Even pasta, it's a pain to find pasta that just normal semolina flour, so many products have extra ingredients-then they need to warped to healthy (sprouted, protein, lentil ect).

All methods to lose weight are built around consumer products, and are not integrated into lifestyles. And if you are someone who buys whole foods and bikes around you are mocked.

The craziest thing I see is people driving to somewhere to go for a run. Like get a warm up in or something by walking/jogging to a path.

Finally, just the power of pharmaceuticals. When I ran a marathon in Ottawa, my cousin gave me painkillers at the start to deal with the "pain"... umm I've run 11 marathons clean, I can handle it. Anything thing that is slightly discomforting is met with a perscription, a pill or something. pills pills pills. A family member is perscribed some dozen pills for his health, it's crazy, and the pills are so awful. When he was off them he could walk for 2km with no trouble, when he's on them he gets winded after 10m. Why no prescribe a diet or exercise instead?

Every factor of life is met with a commodified product, some people manage to stay healthy and thin under it, others just feel so empty with the constant desire and requirement to consume and consume. In the end being overweight is accepted because it's not anyones fault because everything is made to make someone slightly unhealthier, slightly heavier, before you know you you're overweight.

If the majority of people are fat, then they are in control of whether it is accepted or not. The rest of us can't outvote them.