Why are most people fat in the US? Any ideas?

They eat more calories than they burn.

Too much vegetable oils and refined flour/sugar.

Definition of what consistories chubby or fat has risen drastically

Also wearing yoga pants all time covers lots for ladies. There’s a reason women over 30 don’t wear shorts lol.

If men were required to go shirtless on the weekends you’d see them lose weight lol

When I was young we spent all day outdoors playing, we would ride to other neighborhoods looking to play pick up baseball games, now the only things kids pick up is their phone.

Sugar and fast carbs, though every reason mentioned above also contributes.

Trickle down effect of capitalism.

We went from eating three meals a day no snacks to eating three meals and snacks all the time. There are fast food and 7-11’s every corner. We have overwhelmed our insulin production by eating all the time and we are only story fat. However i am just a fat hobby jogger and just spit balling.

The food industry has engineered foods and dietary advice perfectly to maximize both waistlines and profits. Of course, government policy makers get their cut as well.

If you want to stay slim and healthy, reverse EVERY recommendation by government and industry and you will be 98% on the right track. Of course, you will face blowback from ignorant useful idiots all around you in the process. Let your improved running performance and health markers five you the Last Laugh.

My ideas:

video games

fast food / junk food

sugary drinks

Bradyc wrote:

When I was young we spent all day outdoors playing, we would ride to other neighborhoods looking to play pick up baseball games, now the only things kids pick up is their phone.

This. My diet wasn’t particularly healthy growing up, but we were always running around outside with the neighbor kids, riding bikes, rollerblading, etc. didn’t have video games or phones. Now you rarely see kids playing outside..rather they are inside playing video or computer games.

Overall people are moving less and eating more. Portion sizes have definitely increased.

Me too. I ate whatever, whenever, which was a lot of anything and often.

Perhaps in the last few years, there has been more peer pressure to be less active and more lazy?

gfyikt wrote:

2. Food ingredients changed in the early 1990's. Fat was replaced by more calorie dense sugar.

"Fat contains twice the energy density of carbohydrate (9 calories per gram versus 4 calories per gram) and does not require water for storage, as does carbohydrate." "Fat is energy dense, having an at water factor of 9 kilocalories, 37 kilojoules, per gram."

Thermodynamics wrote:

They eat more calories than they burn.

It seems like U.S. people are either super fit and in your face about it, with the way they dress, or super fat and dont give a crap about their health or how they look.

That bifurcation is only going to get wider, like half of Americans asses. (See what i did there).

See the other thread on 27 lb macaroni and cheese buckets.

Energy taken in vs energy burned is pretty much the whole story.

All good points, but I’d also like to mention that it’s partly due to the prevalence of added sugar in all foods. In this article, a study showed that 60% of foods contained added sugars.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/upshot/it-isnt-easy-to-figure-out-which-foods-contain-sugar.html

It’s not just stuff like sugary drinks either. Added sugars are found in stuff like bread and pasta sauce as well.

No wonder we’ve become a nation of the fat.

I am an old man, and I have watched this country get fatter and fatter over the decades. I am the same height and weight as I was in grade 11. 136 lbs requires the same eating habits and exercise program now as it did back then. I think people believe being fit is something very complicated. They also think due to some unknown factor they don't have at their disposal they are held back from fitness. We make things complicated when discipline and hard work are what it takes to hold the line. Being unable to manage our finances and weight seem to go hand in hand. Having a strong will and discipline go a long way when personal responsibility is at stake.

If you look at the eating patterns and the changes over the last hundred years or so, a few things stand out:

1. Protien consumption is not that high, in fact it has not changed much over the last hundred years. So this idea America got because of our protein obsessed society is false.

2. Introduction of vegetable oils.

3. The increase of the consumption of refined flour/sugar.

4. What is missing in the average American diet is whole unprosecessed foods.

https://www.cnpp.usda.gov/USFoodSupply-1909-2010

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5304a3.htm

1. People are less active, I've spent sat morning lying on the couch surfing the web, if there was no internet or video games I would be doing something active

2. There has always been added sugar and preservative in everything, but nowadays you get way more food for the sme amount of money. An extra large soft drink from mcd's in the 80s looks like a medium now. Beeff is twice as fatty, chickens are twice the size, etc.

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+chickens+have+changed&client=firefox-b-1&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=XqXHoNsqMDBzHM%253A%252Cupg8rlNLYz23QM%252C_&usg=AI4_-kT1mlpiQrPnjn4pt32nxhGj6fQh9A&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi00JLs2-jfAhUQQ60KHfD9DCIQ9QEwA3oECAAQCA#imgrc=_