Obesity rates are on a steady climb in the US. What will happen in the next 50 years? If a person's body weight is at least 20% higher than it should be, he or she is considered obese. If your Body Mass Index (BMI) is between 25 and 29.9 you are considered overweight. If your BMI is 30 or over you are considered obese. WHITE (non hispanic) BLACK (non hispanic) Hispanic
It's been a little surprising, no? Since we have more info and education out there about the harmful effects of being overweight, about sugar and sugary drinks, about carbs and saturated fat, etc. I guess most people still don't really like veggies when you get down to it. Just surprised that it's going up. And you know, once we start really trying to figure out causes... this will move to the D&D pretty quickly, sad to predict.
Easily obtained and cheap calorie dense processed food. And it’s engineered to keep you coming back for far more than you need. This obesity rate will only increase while different food companies will point fingers at everyone else when they all know the problem...but as long as the profits continue to role in for them and Big Pharma ( and the lobbyists )...who cares?
Though most now have a greater awareness of the effects that refined carbohydrates have on the body, I still think a lot of people don't quite comprehend how insane portion sizes are in this country. You end up with a lot of people eating the worst kinds of calories, and way too many to boot.
Agree and with the post before yours, but still... we've had the same crap food, big portions, mass produced high density calories, for at least 40+ years, so why is the problem of obesity getting worse ? Seems like it would have leveled off, especially as some get more diet and weight and exercise conscious. I would suggest part of it is really economic. Eating better is expensive. Having time (or a gym membership) to exercise is expensive. Give someone two or three part-time jobs to barely pay their bills and see how well they'll eat, how much time they have to shop smartly, or how much leisure time they'll find to go jogging or something. I'd suggest obesity is just one more sign of the growing chasm between haves and have nots, but I admit that's one of my hobby horses.
Obese is an offensive word. The proper terminology is thicc. Please consider not using such outdated language in the future.
You're not wrong about the economic factors that lead to higher rates of obesity in lower income groups, but consider this: source: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-26/first-time-americans-spend-more-eating-out-food-home If people are eating out/ordering in at greater and greater rates, not only are they having larger portions, they're likely consuming far more salt, fat, and carbs than they would if they were cooking the same amount of food for themselves at home. So it's not just a class issue, I don't think.
Free refills and initial drink portion sizes. Also consider companies like Yum! Brands, who in their fast food and chip lines appear to be developing new flavors and products every week to indulge and stimulate individual tastes and probably accelerate frequency of consumption. When non-pizza fast food figures out online ordering and delivery these numbers will explode even more rapidly.
I wont say some of the issues you listed are not a problem for some. People are becoming increasingly more lazy. People dont become overweight over night. Kids are leaving high school with serious weight issues. At this point, the bad habits are set in and its very difficult to overcome. We can blame sugar. We can blame processed food. We can say eating healthy is expensive. Growing up, eating this crap was common. The difference is we were pretty active. Now days its an exception instead of the norm to see kids out doing things on their own. Eating healthy has become a catch phrase. What is 'eating healthy' even suppose to mean? With dozens of diets of common diets and constant conflicting information on ways to achieve weight loss, its very obvious a very lucrative market has been created to suck more money from people in the name of being healthy. A gym is not needed to exercise. If a person lives in a MDU and can't exercise in their own home, they almost always have an exercise room. Used weight sets are very cheap. $30.00 worth of weights from walmart can be used to do many kinds of exercises. Water is the most economical drink out there. Sugar loaded juices, teas, sodas, ect .. are not needed. Drinks are one of the biggest sources of sugar for people. Portion sizes. Enough said. A person doesn't have to constantly eat expensive fruits and vegetables. Yes, they are a great source of nutrients. The bigger problem is the massive amounts of hollow calories people shove down their mouth.
America's life expectancy has dropped for 3 years in a row now I think. That's extremely alarming, hasn't been done in over 100 years.
That's a pretty interesting point, and the change in children's habits fits the overall rise in national obesity. Our generation basically ran around all day. I'm no parent, but all our friends are parents, basically, and they bemoan how different things are today. Few families feel safe letting, say, 8 year olds spend a whole saturday out of the house running around lord-knows-where. Fatter kids become fatter adults, in general. This and the graph above from @dharocks about eating out are both really compelling reasons.
Y'all trying to make me feel bad for ordering pizza for the fam tonight? Sorry but 2 topping large for $5.99 is a good deal. Anyway, it's thin crust and one of the toppings is grilled chicken, so it's a something of a diet pizza.
No hate from me, yo. Just start with the pizza in one corner of the yard and make the kids run for their slices.
Here are the current dietary guidelines from the US department of HHS For the most part we have been following these guidelines over duration of the obesity epidemic. So we do what HHS tells us and we've been getting fatter..... Fruit and Vegetable Consumption is up Spoiler red meat consumption (saturated fats) is way down Spoiler Though the increase in calorie consumption is bad, these awful guidelines by the US also don't help. You should be eating tons of saturated fats and no grains.
Good idea. But not sure if a YouTube vid of having my daughter race my dog for the chance to eat pizza would get me famous on the internet with an appearance on Ellen, or if it would have law enforcement en route for child and animal abuse. Regardless, my oldest usually dances while eating if we eat at home, so there's some burned calories.
It was very obvious when I visited Toronto last week. Most people in Toronto are very healthy and I didn't see very many overweight people and didn't see and extremely obese people like I do in Texas.
Ehhh... This may be true for the majority of Americans who are quite sedentary, but just giving one example, for centuries Asian rice farmers subsisted on diets consisting primarily of white rice and little protein, and they didn't get obese. Mediterranean diets contain a fair amount of unrefined carbohydrates. Our bodies are built to convert glucose to energy. If a person is active and uses carbs as fuel, there's really nothing wrong with consuming grains.
