Three Quarters Of U.S. Adults Are Now Overweight Or Obese
Posted by EmbarrassingAlttt@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 323 comments
SS: This relates to collapse because of the huge impact this will have on our healthcare at a time of uncertainty for the US. From the article:
Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, according to a sweeping new study. The findings have wide-reaching implications for the nation’s health and medical costs as it faces a growing burden of weight-related diseases.
The study, published on Thursday in The Lancet, reveals the striking rise of obesity rates nationwide since 1990 — when just over half of adults were overweight or obese — and shows how more people are becoming overweight or obese at younger ages than in the past. Both conditions can raise the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, and shorten life expectancy.
oracleoflove@reddit
Not many things keep me up at night but what is being done to our food supply does. Feeding my tiny humans is a constant stressor. The corporations have gotten sneaky with labeling in recent years.
Eff this timeline.
frostandtheboughs@reddit
As someone with multiple food sensitivities (migraine triggers), finding convenience foods that won't make me sick is nearly impossible.
My choices are basically down to cooking from scratch or eating popcorn.
It's shocking how few packaged foods don't have preservatives or flavorings. The "spices" makes me the angriest. If they were actually spices, the label would just say "cayenne" or "cumin". Our labeling laws are a hellscape.
modifyandsever@reddit
i have a capsaicin allergy that makes my gums itch and bleed. they are so sneaky trying to pass off spices under vague labels that i just consider the taste of my own blood to be a given sometimes
frostandtheboughs@reddit
Jfc lol that's awful
throughthehills2@reddit
On the bright side you get nutritious food every meal. Go you!
frostandtheboughs@reddit
You mean I eat a lot of popcorn for dinner? Yes, yes I do.
reticentbias@reddit
low or no sugar cereal costs $8 at a minimum while the cereals packed with 16-30 grams of sugar per serving are 3 dollars for giant bags. kids here don't stand a chance and it makes me so fucking sad. I was one of the overweight folks until I started looking at the labels of everything I ate and fasting.
a_little_hazel_nuts@reddit
The USA has deregulated food production. Corn syrup is added to everything. This combined with a lack of education on food nutrition. People comment about fat people and say things like you just got to exercise away the calories you eat. No, its more important to have a healthy meal plan that doesn't consist of extra calories. I gained so much weight while exercising and dropping my calories to 1100 and I still gained until I was morbidly obese, my doctor finally changed my medication and the weight just came off, but I had a healthy diet, now I found out with that medication they now also prescribed a diet pill with it. The point of all this is people are not always obese because of the reasons people think, alot of medications cause weight gain plus fast paced lifestyles with grab and go meals can result in weight gain.
dumname2_1@reddit
It's impossible* to gain weight eating 1000 calories a day. Thermodynamics won't allow it. You can't gain more energy than what you put in. You must not have been tracking accurately. I don't want to be rude or put you down, and congrulations on your weight loss (really!) I just don't want misinformation spreading.
*the only way to gain the weight is if your body somehow only used 999 calories or less a day.
a_little_hazel_nuts@reddit
Didn't say 1000, I said 1100. Either way it happened. I didn't want to drop my calories to low because that would of resulted in malnutrition or starvation. I was obsessed with both diet and excersize. Having people say your lying or that's not true doesn't help. Don't worry, doctors thought I was a fat ass just eating sweet stuff all day. But after time I believe they figured it out after my pill change and diagnoses of celiac ( not suppose to gain weight with that diagnosis). The weight just fell off, and I stopped all the excersizing and starvation dieting, weights still coming off, but I am an active person and I do eat fairly healthy.
dumname2_1@reddit
I'm really not trying to neg you man. But imagine a car running when you don't put any gas in. If you use more energy than you put in, you will lose weight. Fat is essentially energy, and the body can't create energy from no where, it has to come from somewhere. Did you count every single calorie? Did you prepare your food yourself? How long were you on your 1100 calorie diet? I'm truly not trying to come as hostile, but I have people in my life who are killing themselves because they don't want to admit that if they just cut their calorie intake, they'll lose weight. And I'm afraid someone reading your anecdote will use that as an excuse to stop trying.
a_little_hazel_nuts@reddit
Yeah, I prepare all my own food. I did youtube cardio workouts, 500 jump rope jumps, and a long walk everyday for my excersize routine. I cut my calories, in the end down to 1100. This was something that happened over a ten year period and I became morbidly obese. In the beginning, I was 130 pounds and I began medication. I continually gained weight while excersizing and dieting, but I was going on walks and doing yoga in the beginning. It progressed Into what is was in the end. I was obsessed over my diet and excersize routine. 10 years obsessed over unexplained weight gain. But like I said it's finally coming off and it was because of the medication screwing up my metabolism one way or another.
dumname2_1@reddit
I'm going Dr. House and saying that you were sleep eating. The weight had to come from somewhere. The human body is incapable of creating more energy than put into it. Either that or you simply made a mistake for 10 years. Nobody is perfect. But the weight is going away now and that's all that matters.
a_little_hazel_nuts@reddit
Why don't you go ahead and read the other comments on this thread talking about hormone imbalance, dietary illnesses, and medications that cause weight gain.
dumname2_1@reddit
Those affect appetite, mood, or perceived energy. Your body cannot create more energy than you put in.
a_little_hazel_nuts@reddit
You have a lack of knowledge and I hope you do not work with people who have weight issues. Hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism cause problems. There are plenty of things that cause problems. You have inability to learn, closed minded views, and stubbornness....good luck with that.
dumname2_1@reddit
I have hyperthyroidism. Has caused a numerous amount of physical issues in my life. Has influenced my weight my whole life, but never broke the laws of physics. My mother also has an overactive thyroid. It runs in the family. I'm not arguing out malice or ignorance. I've seen what mindsets like yours does to people. I've lived with it, and in my work I see it every single day. You've found something that works and that's all that matters. The statement that the body cannot produce energy from nowhere does not make me close minded. The idea that you perfectly followed a diet recommended by health professionals, and yet you believe you did no wrong and it was numerous doctors who did you wrong, makes you close minded.
judithishere@reddit
Unhealthy food is cheaper too.
DNosnibor@reddit
If you're eating out this is often true, but at the grocery store a lot of fruits and vegetables are some of the cheapest things you can get. Bananas are like $0.25 each. A large onion is about $1. Big head of lettuce is like $2. Peeled baby carrots are like $2 for a pound. Etc. Grains are pretty cheap. Chicken is generally considered a healthier meat to eat than beef, and it's cheaper, too. Water is way cheaper than soda. Baked potatoes are way cheaper than potato chips relative to how filling they are. You get my point.
judithishere@reddit
Yeah and you can get four packs of ramen for $1. Sure, you can fancy up ramen to make it a more healthy meal, but many just eat it as is. You can get a pack of pasta for $1. Sure, you can add things to pasta to make it a more healthy meal, but a lot of people just throw a jar of sauce on it. That isn't the best long term healthy eating strategy, but it's cheap and easy. Yes some fruits and vegetables are affordable, but you need to add carbs and protein. Can you eat a well balanced, healthy meal on the cheap? You can. But that takes time and planning for most families, things that can be in short supply. Our food system in the US is owned by like four corporations, and they make sure prices stay high and continue to climb. They also advertise absolutely junk to kids, constantly.
NigilQuid@reddit
Ramen is just pasta and a packet of seasoning, you can get pasta instead. And if you add vegetables to pasta, congratulations you now have a balanced meal
frostandtheboughs@reddit
Right, but all of those things cost time and energy to prepare. People working two jobs (or even one job) and raising kids can't always "afford" that time & energy.
Proof_Ad3692@reddit
A thousand percent true
thr0wnb0ne@reddit
also injuries can make it impossible to exercise. working people tend to get injured more and on top of that because we have to work we cant take the time off to properly heal. its hard to do much of anything with a herniated vertebra let alone a sit up lol also you cant really do cardio if itll literally make you bleed all over the floor. not even to mention recovering from major surgery
judithishere@reddit
Yeah I was going to the gym to ride the exercise bikes and do a weight lifting class and developed Achilles tendonitis, which had taken forever to get better and is really annoying for such a simple injury.
teamsaxon@reddit
I ended up developing a few overuse injuries due to work and they still affect my work outs and exercise over a year later.
judithishere@reddit
Yeah I am dealing with that now, the achilles problem and sciatica. It's been difficult, mentally and physically, to stay positive.
teamsaxon@reddit
That's the thing about injuries, they can affect you mentally as well not just physically.
Ok_Main3273@reddit
Any tip on fixing Achilles tendonitis? Would be much appreciated right now.
judithishere@reddit
These exercises help, but it take 2-3 months to heal, at least.
Ok_Main3273@reddit
Thank you!
teamsaxon@reddit
This is so overlooked too. I tore my atfl and it has been so hard to do cardio without either doing none or going overboard. Injuries happen and can derail any sort of exercise for any given time.
coinpile@reddit
I don’t understand how weight gain on 1,100 calories is possible, medication or no. Apparently daily natural calorie burn can be as low as 1,300. Were you not active at all? This doesn’t make any sense.
bramblez@reddit
Hormone dysfunction. Robert Lustig talks about an experiment when they put kids whose hypothalamus pituitary axis had received more than 30 Gy on a 500 kcal per day diet in a medical setting. They barely moved, their temperature was low, and they still added body fat. Then leptin was discovered, and when given, the kids spontaneously wanted to move. Your body will store the fat the hormones dictate, overeating is how you get excess energy to live life in that condition. Plenty of normal weight people have metabolic syndrome. Weight is a red herring. The 30 trillion dollar question is, why are our mitochondria becoming less efficient?
reticentbias@reddit
not a doctor but microplastics
Vlad_Yemerashev@reddit
Certain meds like prednisone (often used with people with conditions like Chrohn's or Ulcerative Collitus but can be prescribed for many other conditions involving inflamation, etc., and orgam recipients are usually on it for life) can really do a number on your bodily functions. They don't call it "the devil's tic tacs" for nothing.
BitchfulThinking@reddit
Psych meds too. Even those of us with more restrictive eating disorders gained weight while on many of those, without any change in diet or exercise. Someone can rapidly lose weight in the same fashion, after stopping/starting a new medication.
sharpestcookie@reddit
People who don't take medication that can increase weight gain or have a metabolic disorder (in my case, PCOS and hypothyroidism) can't fathom how someone can eat so little yet still gain weight. Our metabolisms and/or gut biomes are dysfunctional. At a reasonable caloric intake, most of what we eat still goes right to our fat stores because we can't metabolize food like thin people. I was exercising like I should (3hrs 3x/week at 150bpm sustained heart rate), and I gained weight - because I gained muscl,e but didn't lose any fat. I could afford to eat healthily and did so. Nothing was happening.
My doctors were whittling down my calorie count (carbs were long gone) until it got so low that they realized I was more likely to literally starve to death than lose any weight.
Then they recommended bariatric surgery for me solely because it would reset my metabolism back to a caloric intake where "normal" people can eat less to lose weight. At the time, they didn't know why this happened exactly, just that it did.
And it worked. I lost over 120lbs.
The seemingly useless medications they'd been prescribing me for years actually began working post-surgery.
Then I caught C. diff from a filthy hotel bathroom during lockdown while on antibiotics for a rare dental complication and ruined my gut biome. It took me 3 years to get diagnosed and fully recover, and I've only been able to keep my balance (chronic dehydration) long enough in the last few months to continue the weight loss. I'll still never be the same.
So no. It doesn't make any sense. We try to make sense of our bodies, but there's still a lot we just don't know.
Interesting-Mix-1689@reddit
I'm not accusing anyone of lying maliciously, but people are notoriously bad at self-reporting the amount of calories they consume. Unless someone is weighing everything they eat and drink they're probably substantially off.
a_little_hazel_nuts@reddit
I was exercising 3 hours a day. Cardio, jump roping, walking....it didn't make sense, I obsessed over every calorie and my excersize routine. I don't know why it happened. I have never been obese but I had to start this medication and the weight just kept coming, nomatter what I did. I changed medication and was also diagnosed with celiac disease which is supposedly suppose to make you lose weight, but I just gained weight. Either way changed medication and cut gluten out of my diet and the weight just started falling off.
Jack_Flanders@reddit
My father warned me about the rise of HFCS, in the 1970s!
Wise man, he was.
Rossdxvx@reddit
How many Americans are actually happy and content with their lives? None? Even the ones who perceive themselves to be “winning,” are they actually happy and fulfilled as human beings? Or is it constant oneupmanship of your rivals - real and imagined? It seems to me that only sociopaths feel that this way of life fits them to a tee. Most other people are spiritually sickened by it, which is why I believe a deep malaise has set in and affected most of society.
My point is that living in America nowadays is living in an environment that is wholly toxic. The poison that passes for food is one aspect of it, but I think that the whole culture is unhealthy to most people in general. It is literally being poisoned (mind and body) to death every day.
ilir_kycb@reddit
Just the inevitable fate of a society that worships capitalism above all else.
Teddy_Swolesevelt@reddit
I just spent 3 weeks in Asia in large cities (Hong Kong, Tokyo, Taipei, Osaka, Manila) and small "province" towns as well. Upon landing in Chicago, I was IMMEDIATELY hit with this overwhelming sense of dread and sadness of being back in the USA. It's so weird how NOTHING works. I've thought over the years that it was all in my head, but it seems that the only purpose the USA has is to get you poor, stressed, diabetic, and hopeless.
The-waitress-@reddit
I live in CA and fly to Chicago a few times/yr. As soon as I land and start walking around the airport I realize how fat most ppl are. It’s shocking. Not saying ppl in Chicago are fat - I’m saying ppl are fat, but I notice it A LOT more in the Midwest.
GreyRevan51@reddit
I first came to the U.S. when I was 7, one of the first things that struck me was how many kids my age AND YOUNGER were already really fat, like beyond anything remotely healthy and no one seemed to care?
The ones I made friends with and would stay over at their houses, their parents were almost always hugely overweight as well.
This one kid literally ate Cookie Crisp for breakfast, like no wonder?
Before kids even have a chance to fend for themselves they’re already addicted to sugar and are accustomed to desert every meal
I_bite_ur_toes@reddit
My sister has two young sons and they are both crazy overweight. I had hopes that the other one would stay skinny because he is more active than the other kids but now he is already gaining weight like crazy. I feel like it's not my business but I wonder if her pediatrician is telling her that their weight is a problem? Like I said it makes me so sad to see the way they eat junk constantly and stare at their iPads 24/7
Teddy_Swolesevelt@reddit
I live in the northeast now but grew up in Alabama. The FIRST thing I notice with anything to do with alabama is how fat everyone is. I'm not being condescending to them or dramatic..... it's like 90/100 people you see there are just fat. Men, women, and children. I'm a member of local alabama social media groups still (mainly lake fishing spots I like to go when I visit) and EVERY post on these groups of some community function shows this perfectly..... it's a giant group of fat people and like, 5 normal sized people. There was a black preacher in Atlanta that said something to the tune of how he was losing more of his congregation to the sweets than he was to the streets.
The-waitress-@reddit
Totally. I’ve watched my dad live his whole adult life in terrible health bc he was obese. He’s been on Ozempic a long while for diabetes, and he lost a ton of weight, but the damage is already done. He’s in pain all the time even though he’s the lightest I’ve ever seen him.
If I have to live in this POS world, I want my health. I take it seriously. No alcohol, no refined sugar, no fast food, no smoking.
Taqueria_Style@reddit
How are the side effects of Ozempic?
I can take off weight but it's a slog and I'm getting de-motivated to do so because I just put it all right back on again. I get Ozempic won't fix that. Cooking healthy will fix that. But for getting it off again it would... help. To have some help. Honestly. Because by the time I'm done starving and cardio-ing for 4 months the last thing I want to do is learn cooking. I want to lay down and eat a damned pizza.
I_bite_ur_toes@reddit
I've been on Ozempic and Wegovy- the only side effect I felt was nausea occasionally but it came and went. I loved how it helped me control my appetite and the only reason I'm not still on it is because my stupid Medicaid only paid for the first 1 or 2 months of it so now I have to figure out how to have my Doc put in the correct medical code so that it'll actually get paid for by insurance instead of denied. But I highly recommend it for help with controlling appetite.
The-waitress-@reddit
Learning to cook is a key to weight loss. I encourage you to learn anyway.
TheOldPug@reddit
Recently I learned that there is a term for this. It's called "California sober" when you don't drink alcohol but still partake in marijuana.
The-waitress-@reddit
Can confirm. I live in CA and have been “California sober” for almost 10 years.
qualmton@reddit
People can’t afford health and it’s depressing causing happy pills and mental issues eating carbs fills the void and brings us diabetes and obesity. It’s a great life cause gas is cheap now, right?
Sonnyjesuswept@reddit
That’s a cop out. Get yourself fat adapted and you don’t have to eat nearly as much as you think you do. But it’s hard at first and dare I say it but those who are obese don’t exactly excel at depriving themselves (and I’ve been overweight myself so know how hard it is). I have 5 kids at home and live basically off one wage. If you’re willing to put in the time and effort- anyone can afford to get healthy.
lifeofrevelations@reddit
it's a lack of self-discipline
The-waitress-@reddit
I’m gonna have cheaper eggs, apparently. That’s all I need to know!
Effective-Bandicoot8@reddit
Chicago deep dish
AnyJamesBookerFans@reddit
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you've never visited the deep South. They make Midwesterners look svelte.
The-waitress-@reddit
Gatekeeping obesity. Now I’ve seen it all.
shallowshadowshore@reddit
Can you share more about this? What do you mean?
Teddy_Swolesevelt@reddit
I could type a book's worth on this but the gist of it is this: It seems that EVERYTHING is designed to drain your soul and your money and it feels intentional. It feels designed this way. I'm in my mid 40s. I look at this country in just my lifetime and it seems like things have not gotten any better. The intentional creation of scarcity, the increasing gaps between the haves and the have nots, the false promises of a better society if we just implement a new policy/leader/president/congress/court/etc.
Maybe I am crazy, but it feels that anything on a federal level is freakishly expensive for the product delivered. Anything that starts with "Department of" cost taxpayers much more than other countries and the product delivered is mediocre at best if I am being generous. I could list 10 "Department of" organizations that are absolute bullshit and have gotten exponentially worse for the cost/benefit ratio. Department of Education? Our public school systems are expensive while public school graduates can't do basic reading/math. Food and Drug Administration? Get real. It only has one purpose and that is to get your sick and fat as shit on dogshit foods and sell you the treatments (not the cure....just the treatments). Department of Transportation? Hah..... our crumbling infrastructure is a joke along with our non-walkable cities and bullshit train systems. Our major airports are a joke compared to ANY major city in Asia that America doesn't call "third world".
I could go on and on but you get the point.
IsItAnyWander@reddit
What you list as purposes are the tactics of which the ruling class use to enrich themselves and keep the citizens from revolting. The "purpose" of the USA is to benefit a handful of billionaires with ever more power. Literal psychopaths. The USA is a factory. The factory employs all types of methods to produce its goods. Capitalism is one method. Propaganda is another. Poisoned "food" yet another. Legal and illegal drugs. Miseducation. Mentally, physically, spiritually, Americans are direly unhealthy. But we're still going to work every day to keep the "factory" running. People will huff and puff and say "you have work." As if the work we do does anything to help us. It's right in front of our eyes yet we can't see it. I've come to the conclusion, after much thought and contemplation, that the USA is likely one of the worst places to have existed on earth. Imagine the reaction from my wife when I laid that one on her 😂. She nearly left me, seriously, no joke. I promise I'm not crazy 😉. I go to work every day, have a mortgage, kids. I'm tempted by worldy things. I'm admittedly addicted to dopamine from social media and spend too much time on my phone. But my mind and thoughts are one thing they don't have control of. One thing about collapse, and I believe it's a large, if not the largest, driver of the "bring on collapse" crowd, is that it's going to break the chains of control the ruling class have on us. For better or worse (likely far far worse). I don't think most of them understand why they want collapse, but I think that's it. It's one of two ways the control they have on us can be subverted, I believe. The second is a general strike. But that would take organization of a magnitude I'm not sure is actionably possible.
So collapse it is!
Taqueria_Style@reddit
It's right in front of our eyes yet we can't see it.
I can see it just fine and it's driving me insane.
I also got an up close and personal look at what dying slow is like and it makes me terrified. Literally. PTSD man. I want to be Scrooge McDuck over this because you would not believe what even the cheap seats to dying cost.
Quality of life is in the shitter because if it wasn't for the "threat of hell" when I'm 85 I'd just "off myself" (check out of this system). Dying costs way the fuck more than living does.
IsItAnyWander@reddit
I'm sorry to hear of the hell you've seen. ❤️
Canyoubackupjustabit@reddit
Well said!
NorthernAvo@reddit
I would vacation in the Dominican Republic (where I have lots of family) and Peru (same) quite a lot as a kid. Every single time I'd get back to NYC, going through customs at JFK, being met with the mean cops, I'd notice, even then, that something was awfully wrong with this place. It just felt like a giant industrial powerhouse for money, where no one had time to even feel.
I remember my friend's grandpa asking me how I liked Peru once and I told him I actually didn't want to come back. He said that was nonsense and that America was the best country there is and I'd see it someday. He was an immigration Argentina.
I still don't see it, man. And I'm 30 now. And I moved across the country and the city I live in now feels worse than any third world country I've been to. It constantly feels like I'm in a shit box.
lNesk@reddit
As a Peruvian I can understand the feeling of not wanting to be in my own country, so much corruption and hopelessness on the future, infant malnutrition, terrible health system among an extensive thing of systemic issues. But as well the sense of community is much better over there and I miss my country from time to time (until I'm there more than a month). But I get you, the grass is always greener on the other side.
NorthernAvo@reddit
❤️
Teddy_Swolesevelt@reddit
My American dream is to leave America. I totally get it. I've been in airports in "third world countries" that were much better than Ohare, JFK, Atlanta Hartsfield, Logan, and many more.
BitchfulThinking@reddit
Can confirm. Manila was way more efficient than LA. Traffic is... comparable but drivers are far more competent in Asia despite what this racist country would have people believe.
Teddy_Swolesevelt@reddit
I've only been to the airport in LA but have been to Manila (and PHP) many times. The traffic is brutal and sometimes comical (saw 3 dudes on one motorbike with two of them holding chickens). I agree, the drivers are not as insane as in cities in the USA that I have lived or visited like Boston and Chicago.
dumnezero@reddit
The Rat Race.
I would like to see who isn't using food as drug (some pleasure, some calm). Who isn't eating their emotions.
This is why I have to argue with incrementalists who believe in tiny changes to the diets. I recommend radically embracing a better diet based on whole plant foods; over night if possible. The reason I advocate for radical change is because the "emotional eating" translates to addiction (to SAD foods), and trying to drop an addiction while constantly reinforcing it -- but in smaller doses, is usually very difficult. You can't taper off the hyperpalatable SAD food in this environment either, it's everywhere, it's cheap, it's advertised everywhere, the signs and everywhere outside. That's why a radical approach must be embraced: go cold tofu.
Here's a long explanation on food addiction: https://theproof.com/beating-food-addictions-dr-jud-brewer/
Claud6568@reddit
Cold tofu. lol!
pajamakitten@reddit
Cold tofu is pretty delicious. It can replace feta in salad.
ChooChooChoozeMe@reddit
Former binge eater here, the trick for me was giving up all sugar, desserts and candy (including things like maple syrup and honey). Otherwise I still eat all the same foods I did before. I've never felt better, and I never binge eat anymore, 11 years on and counting.
red_whiteout@reddit
Idk man, junk food is a small portion of my diet which is majority high fiber and plant-based with a decent amount of diversity. I fast for a few hours in the morning and then eat intuitively. My weight has been the same for 10 years and I’ve never been fat because I adjust my diet temporarily when my clothes get a little tight (tight clothes = recomping muscle into fat, so it means I need more protein and more calories to rebuild muscle). People who are very sensitive to how their body works can easily stay a healthy weight even if they eat a bag of hot cheetos or a giant muffin every once in a while.
Radical lifestyles are so much more difficult for someone like me than simple moderation.
dumnezero@reddit
The change is radical, not the diet.
LeaveNoRace@reddit
Second this!!! Eliminating processed food. Eliminating most vegetable oils. Reducing (trying to eliminate) sugar. Eating only between noon - 6pm ( r/intermittentfasting ). THIS WORKS. Lowers inflammation. Amazing weight loss. Feel so much healthier!
_rihter@reddit
When I was growing up, American fast food chains like McDonald's and genuine Coca-Cola were considered luxury. I mostly ate white bread, homemade mayonnaise and processed meat because that's all my family could afford. Non-processed meat was reserved for holidays and birthdays.
It will probably take me a few more decades to recover from all that trauma psychologically, but I doubt my body will forget.
dumnezero@reddit
Same, but Eastern Europe. When we could afford Coke, I'd get the biggest bottle (cheapest per weight) and split it with my dad; neither of us got fat though. We also had soda machines in stores for a bunch of years, so we'd reuse PET bottles and get the cheapest soda drinks possible. In my part of the world, the processed meat was still expensive, so it was bought in small amounts cut on the spot, like in a butcher store. And it was wrapped in paper, not plastic, so it stank. Sometimes I just asked for a number of slices as they had a mechanical slicer. I always find it ironic now that "popular myth" about processed meat is that the problem with it is the starch or soy used to cheapen it (scientifically wrong) or the nitrates used for preservation.
I wouldn't call it psychological trauma for me, it was normal, basically everyone was this 'poor'. Biochemically, however, all that processed meat and that margarine probably left some scars in my body. White bread is still popular here, it's a bit of a status symbol. I try to tell my family and friends to eat whole wheat or dark bread, but they can't stand the thought as that is associated with being a poor peasant.
OKCompE@reddit
I'm so glad your comment is being so well received because it describes exactly how I feel. I had to get out. I love my home country but man I have so much cultural dysphoria.
Rossdxvx@reddit
I really regret not getting out twenty years ago when I was younger and it was much easier. Putting so much emotional investment into a lost cause was also a big mistake. Although, finding other western countries that are also not in some sort of decline is getting much harder nowadays.
LuveeEarth74@reddit
I’ve thought this for awhile.
America eats like it has access to free healthcare, ha.
I saw this overweight/obese statistic on Vox and it doesn’t surprise me.
I’m a high school science teacher and several of my students are being raised by grandparents due to parental deaths and addiction to opiates.
This whole election thing seriously feels like a fever dream.
As a child of the eighties and heck, even young adult of the nineties I didn’t think it would be like this.
Taqueria_Style@reddit
I did but not for 20 more years.
I mean, don't get me wrong, in the 90's I thought it was going to turn out really not great. But I didn't know how to connect the dots to what affects what.
Like if you'd asked me in the 90's if there was going to be mass unemployment and a huge wealth gap I'd have said "of course". Would have said that sometime in the mid 80's as well but I was too worried about getting vaporized at that point.
That it would lead to comic-book-esque levels of "food riot in progress" (as seen in The Running Man), I would have said 20 years more for that. But bluntly I'm shocked it's not there already. What are people supposed to do?
It might as well be there in certain parts of LA I'll tell you that.
Immediate-Meeting-65@reddit
Have you read "Master and his emissary" By Ian Mcgilchrist? It seems to look at this sort of overly logical world we've fallen into that no longer values "life".
throughthehills2@reddit
Ian has really thought provoking ideas
dumnezero@reddit
Once you have a civilization (culture) that has social hierarchy where one group of sentient individuals matters a lot more than other groups of sentient individuals, the whole thing evolves into a competition of escaping the "doesn't matter" group.
offerbackafire@reddit
Beautifully put.
DEEP_SEA_MAX@reddit
I'm an American that's happy and content with my life. I'm worried about the future, but not everyone is suffering all the time.
Rossdxvx@reddit
Certainly, as individuals we can be content and happy. In fact, people are capable of being happy during the very worst of times. Life will always go on - through the bad as well as the good. With that said, finding that silver lining is essential for one to survive during the very worst of times, I believe.
However, overall, as a society we are a very sick nation, there is no doubt about it. Doesn't mean that you can't be happy within a sick nation. Although the overall prevailing vibe is one of dysfunction and societal breakdown, as individuals we can focus on what is within our own limited sphere of power to do.
Obviously, studies like this show that everything is going in the wrong direction. We don't want obese people, we want healthy and happy people. People who are sick are incapable as human beings of reaching their full potential. And on a gauge of whether society is succeeding or failing, we are failing.
VanillaSkittlez@reddit
We are far and few between, my friend. It’s okay to realize that you are (and I am), but it’s important we in a position of privilege also realize the reality.
I was listening to the Daily yesterday and Sanders cited a statistic that said 60% of people in this country are living paycheck to paycheck. That doesn’t mean the 40% are thriving either, just that they’re in better condition than paycheck to paycheck.
America is an amazing place to be if you’re relatively stable and comfortable. It’s just so awful that so few of us are.
Cody10813@reddit
I'm sorry to be the grammar police but this is basically the one phrase that really bugs me so I'm going to go ahead and do it. It's few and far between not vice versa. What does few between even mean? The logic of the phrase is that whatever you are talking about exists in low quantities and separated by great distance. If you reverse the order of few and far the meaning no longer tracks.
VanillaSkittlez@reddit
Sorry, I wrote that comment literally when I first woke up, before I had my morning coffee. Edited, thanks for catching.
IsItAnyWander@reddit
If you analyze why and how you are stable and comfortable, it's not amazing at all.
VanillaSkittlez@reddit
That’s precisely my point. It’s amazing for very few at the expense of everyone else.
There are many people in my situation perfectly okay with that arrangement as long as they benefit. I’m not - and would gladly give up many of my privileges and luxuries if it meant having a more just society.
I can’t do anything about the fact that I was lucky to be in the situation I am, but I surely can be aware and educated about the circumstances that led me to be here and what that means for everyone else.
IsItAnyWander@reddit
That's how I feel as well. Take care.
nyclurker369@reddit
Yeah, but how about that stock market, right!?!
/s
Alarmedalwaysnow@reddit
Bingo. Why are so many people so utterly failing to launch? Is it maybe because every adult is broke, miserable, and juggling 40 tasks at once but still considered not productive enough? Feels like more and more people just look at life, say "no thank you" and escape however they can - usually into junk food and cheap streaming content.
defcas@reddit
Lots of us are content and lead wholly fulfilling lives. We just don’t post much.
SpeakerOfMyMind@reddit
This is beautiful put (sadly) and I very much agree. Thanks for putting this together, as I sometimes have trouble putting words into these thoughts. Especially when most of everyone around me shoots the very notion down before I can truly start.
JesusChrist-Jr@reddit
I keep hearing talk that Ozempic is going to change this, that it's the magic bullet that will reverse the obesity trend. Call me a skeptic, but has there ever been a miracle weight loss drug that wasn't featured in daytime commercials within a decade or two with the tagline "If you or a loved one were harmed by X drug, you may be entitled to compensation?" There's no free lunch in this world, and I suspect that in time we'll see the downsides of this drug. The other piece that's problematic is that it's basically a lifetime drug, most people regain weight if they stop taking it. I am wary of being completely dependent on a pharmaceutical company and insurance company if I don't absolutely have to. But we'll fight with and nail to take the easy path over the right path in most situations, won't we?
coldinthebarn@reddit
You should watch BJ Investigates’ video on ozempic. she just put out one about oprah specifically but the older ozempic video talks about the lobbyists and puppeteers behind it.
The_Weekend_Baker@reddit
Exactly. Here's the study, for those that want to see it.
https://dom-pubs.pericles-prod.literatumonline.com/doi/10.1111/dom.14725
Bold highlighting mine. Without lifestyle change, Ozempic is just yoyo dieting in drug form.
It's why I agree with u/dumnezero. I don't do a completely plant-based diet, just mostly. I eat some dairy (not much), I eat eggs (from our chickens), and I limit myself to no more than 3 oz of animal protein per day, though there are plenty of days I eat none (through 6 days this week, I've had animal protein on 3).
And I lost 270 pounds by doing so. Next month will be the 5-year anniversary of being at/under my original goal weight of 225 (I overshot and now maintain 210 to go with my extreme height).
For those who believe a healthy diet is too expensive, a plant-based diet is both the most affordable diet, and the best for the environment.
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-11-11-sustainable-eating-cheaper-and-healthier-oxford-study
shallowshadowshore@reddit
This is not surprising if you consider obesity to be an endocrine disorder. As with any other disorder or disease that is treatable but not curable, if you stop taking the medication, the problem will come back.
OKCompE@reddit
I really love your message and I hope many people read it.
Immediate-Meeting-65@reddit
Well it does work. However you'd be a fool to believe this increasingly effective cocktail of drugs people are taking to improve their health doesn't have a direct correlation to wealth inequality.
OKCompE@reddit
Exactly, it will just be yet another expression of haves and have-nots, rich and poor. If some American pharma company manages to reverse aging, only poor people will get old and we'll be stuck with the rich assholes forever
Aggravating-Scene548@reddit
Ozempic causes lifelong stomach paralysis and after you regain weight again you will have much less muscle
dumnezero@reddit
Yeah, one of the reported problems is that muscle loss is huge, worse than other weight loss strategies. People should actually be doing more exercise to maintain more muscle while using the drug.
Accomplished_Net7386@reddit
Muscle mass is extremely important for being healthy later in life as well
Taqueria_Style@reddit
That's... exactly... I'm worried my kidneys are going to explode.
EmbarrassingAlttt@reddit (OP)
I was wondering about that as well. The article talks about the stats like it’s current data, but keeps citing numbers from 2021. So…did we hit 75% in 2021 and keep on rising? Or has Ozempic lowered the numbers? It was unclear.
EarthquakeBass@reddit
Iirc last year was the only year in recent memory that it actually went down
EmbarrassingAlttt@reddit (OP)
Do you happen to remember where you saw those stats? I was curious and trying to look it up, but could only find articles speculating that it MIGHT drop, but nothing with actual data.
dumnezero@reddit
Ozempic is fascinating. It should work with diminishing returns and a plateau, but there are ways to achieve the same with plant-based diets full of fiber. Literally the same pathway. See Greger's research review YouTube.
maxdurden@reddit
*too many free lunches in this world
Longjumping-Path3811@reddit
Literally all the fatties I know are on it right now. That's not even a joke.
Aggravating-Scene548@reddit
How much is that,? Do they like it
lowrads@reddit
If people aren't eating healthy and getting everyday exercise, they are still going to have hypertension. If they aren't eating things that keep their environment healthy, they are spreading the famine to themselves that much faster anyhow.
rainydays052020@reddit
Two key points- 1. We don’t really know the long term effects. 2. sounds like once a patient stops taking semaglutide, they gain all the weight back again. :/
Sam_Eu_Sou@reddit
I'd like to also add that the movie "Wall-E" could never be made today and yet nearly 20 years later, we are pretty much living in it.
LightBeerOnIce@reddit
Bingo!
Sam_Eu_Sou@reddit
Seriously! 😫
Here's what Wall-E predicted that we actually have today:
Majority of society is overweight or obese
Buy-N-Large = Amazon (Not Walmart as we originally thought-- Jeff Bezos even owns a spaceship company🤯)
Robots that clean our home and cut our grass
Near sentient AI intelligence that can manipulate people
Chronically online = social media
Loneliness epidemic
Declining birth rates (Not necessarily a horrible thing)
Climate change
"Forever plastics" in our bodies
Clowns for politicians who screw everyone and save themselves
I know I'm leaving out a lot. But this is all I could muster up from memory.
bernmont2016@reddit
All otherwise good points, but FWIW, the current "AI" stuff is nowhere near "sentient".
deleted_by_reddit@reddit
[removed]
dovercliff@reddit
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Vhespir@reddit
First world problems
nucIeus@reddit
I was eating a plum a few days ago and one of my coworkers told me that my apple looks like it’s rotten. We are so far gone that people aren’t recognizing fruits anymore
qmus@reddit
I was eating a Bosc pear, and my coworker ask me if it was a potato lol.
SCP-fan-unkillable@reddit
Shoulda said yes, then continued eating while maintaining aggressive eye contact.
Tears4Veers@reddit
Just came here to say that plums are so fucking good. What an insanely underrated fruit. They taste like candy! Seriously, they are one most delicious fruits to me. I feel like if more people went out of their way to try plums, they would like them.
Man, I just really love plums🥹
OKCompE@reddit
Plum gang
Plums are the fucking best, I'm just here to help you celebrate them
flavius_lacivious@reddit
Easier to blame people as gluttons instead of regulating our food.
JustGresh@reddit
Because it’s true. I’m not obese. I just eat healthy. It’s pretty easy if you have an ounce of dedication
flavius_lacivious@reddit
You realize that your experience will not be universal especially for those with thyroid disorders or PCOS?
MSNinfo@reddit
If you have a thyroid disorder you were diagnosed and now pop a benign levothyroxine before breakfast to regulate your TSH. Not even a reason to be obese if you have access to medical care
flavius_lacivious@reddit
Let’s play a game.
How many people in the US do you think are diagnosed, have a doctor willing to do the necessary tests beyond routine blood work, have a stable employment situation, have adequate PTO for the office visits, have insurance, can afford the copays and tests not covered, can afford the regular visits to keep up the meds, can afford the actual meds, can afford to buy healthy food, have an accessible market that offers healthy foods, have a home to cook the food, and the time to do so?
How many people in the US fit that demographic and can just “pop a pill” before breakfast?
Take a guess. How many do you think it is?
MSNinfo@reddit
Oof
MSNinfo@reddit
I don't know what point you're trying to make nor does it sound like you are aware of what point I'm trying to make. That's a lot of text and unnecessary filtering to prove whatever your point is though. Is the answer 6?
flavius_lacivious@reddit
The question is to illustrate to you that not only have you not thought about the issue beyond your “just pop a pill” belief, you aren’t willing to do so.
This indicates you are not really interested in having an informed opinion and prefer to justify hating on people.
If you really gave a shit, you’d think about it longer than 5.6 seconds.
Why not save everyone some time and just comment, “I hate that people”?
collapse-ModTeam@reddit
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MSNinfo@reddit
TSH, T4 etc are pretty routine bloodwork btw. Probably about 50-100 million going by your unnecessary parameters.
B4SSF4C3@reddit
What % of the 3/4 of the population does this apply to though? We’re talking hundreds of millions of people. They don’t all have thyroid and PCOS problems.
flavius_lacivious@reddit
Have you considered ANY other possibility other than they are lazy and gluttonous? Just eat healthy and hit the gym, amirite?
Why not? No really, that’s a question.
You live a life where you just assume everyone has a job that pays well enough to afford healthy foods, the time to shop and prepare nutritious meals (or likely another adult who actually does the labor for you), access and transportation to the market, healthcare to address underlying conditions, and the luxury to not be in constant survival mode. We won’t even address your education level, gender or ethnicity.
Let’s do some rough estimates so everyone can downvote some more and flex their privilege.
PCOS is 5% to 15% of women of reproductive age (WHO says 8% to 13%). It’s estimated about 6 million US women have that. More than 12% of people have thyroid disorders or about 20 million Americans. An estimated 13 million have undiagnosed endocrine disorders. Then you have 52 million Americans who live in food deserts making eating healthy an impossibility. Another 49 million depend on food banks which focus on nonperishable products. Guess how many people with or without insurance can’t go to the doctor?
We could go on but I sense there isn’t much interest in really understanding the issue. I am betting that even after seeing those stats, you will simply ignore them.
Oh wait, one more: 17 million people struggle to afford food and it jumped by more than 25% in one year.
Do you honestly believe that financial issues don’t play a role in this? Again, this is an actual question for you.
You should probably realize your experience isn’t universal. It’s far more complex than that.
Do you want to actually discuss this issue or simply justify hating on fat people? I am always amazed by these discussions that are basically “I hate this and I want to continue in my limited beliefs because I enjoy hating this thing.”
Are you interested in WHY people in the US are fat or do you just want to continue your beliefs?
Serious question. Do you really care?
JustGresh@reddit
I do realize that. However, I feel that we’re generalizing the population and not speaking an outlier population.
JustinCompton79@reddit
and stop drinking alcohol…
JustGresh@reddit
I still drink! But instead of drinking high % IPAs, I usually stick to wine. And only once or twice a week at most.
stumblinghunter@reddit
But that's boring
JesusChrist-Jr@reddit
~~Easier~~ More profitable
Daniella42157@reddit
Profitable for both the food industry and big pharma
Dollypartonswig1@reddit
Interesting blog series on food advertising and obesity
https://nutritionfacts.org/blog/marketing-takes-off-and-obesity-soars/
Daniella42157@reddit
Thanks! I'll check it out
kosmovii@reddit
And the gym industry
Livid_Village4044@reddit
Banning junk food will just set off another culture war.
It would be possible to tax junk food and subsidize healthy food.
cheezbargar@reddit
It’s not just food. There are amazing street desserts in Japan and carb heavy food in Germany and Italy for example. Americans don’t walk, they drive.
LivefromPhoenix@reddit
Walkable cities get conservatives just as mad as regulating food does.
dumnezero@reddit
I'm going to insist that the way to improve the world is very obvious:
MAKE CONSERVATIVE NIGHTMARES COME TRUE.
Taqueria_Style@reddit
Oh we're about to do that. I don't think anyone really has any idea just how surreal this is going to get.
lil_kleintje@reddit
Make conservatives walk again
BitchfulThinking@reddit
That's literally how I beat the game Half World Socialism lol. My feminist, car-free, carbon neutral, science loving utopia would definitely be their worst nightmare.
dumnezero@reddit
shakes fist at Leather Underground
thatfunkyspacepriest@reddit
We don’t have a choice. Personally, my job doesn’t pay me enough to live within walking distance and the public transportation is non-existent in some local areas or it takes 3 hours to get where you’re going on the bus IF the bus has routes to/from where you’re commuting to. Biking isn’t an option because there aren’t bike lanes or even sidewalks in a lot of places, and drivers regularly hit people on bikes.
I commute 3 hours each day (1.5 hours each way) and work 9 hours a day. There’s not infrastructure available to most Americans that would enable them to live a healthy life. We just don’t have options. Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck and aren’t able to afford a better lifestyle.
cheezbargar@reddit
I know. I live in the U.S as well and my commute is an hour each way.
marratj@reddit
Germany is not a good example. Here, also over half of the population is overweight nowadays.
cheezbargar@reddit
I didn’t see that when I visited, but I was only there for a week, admittedly
AyeYoThisIsSoHard@reddit
America is also big as fuck.
Normally when people knock Americans driving habits it’s in support of public transportation but in this situation you’re knocking them because of people static lifestyles. So I’m curious what your suggestion is?
Do not say walk or bike everywhere because that’s straight up near impossible for easily most of the country.
I walk on average at least 5 miles a day and have the last few years which is more than most Americans but their is still zero chance I’m walking or biking the 26 mile round trip into town for something
cheezbargar@reddit
I’m not knocking them at all. America is designed for cars, not people.
karabeckian@reddit
26 miles on a bike is a 2 hour Saturday cruise for me. Of course, I'm lucky enough to live near some nice bike paths so ymmv.
AyeYoThisIsSoHard@reddit
No bike paths or sidewalks just winding,hilly country roads.
2 hours would be doable from time to time if I was feeling leisurely on a weekend but that is not at all realistic for day to day life without cutting out an hour+ of my personal time everyday.
Losing any amount of my limited free time would just push me that much closer to the edge negating any benefit gained lol
Also it’d just be asking to get splattered like a deer at night.
karabeckian@reddit
Man, that sucks. Especially the limited free time part. I guess just keep doing the best you can. Good luck!
Sororita@reddit
that's kind of a problem with the way the cities have been built since the early 20th century. all our infrastructure is built with drivers in mind and it's impossible to walk anywhere unless you live in one of a few cities that actually have public transport despite the massive campaign to dismantle it all back in the 30's and 40's.
Isbe-red@reddit
Contrary to popular opinion, I think Americans would be willing to sacrifice personal comforts for the greater good, but it just needs to be framed the right way.
Like AOC banning cheeseburgers for 'climate justice' would set off a fascist insurrection, but I think if a ripped hyper-masculine traditional-values-coded blue collar populist said we have to put away the Lays for the American flag and so men can be healthy and strong to protect their women and churches, they'd wear their new healthy eating lifestyle like a badge of honor. Oh you have cravings? Only weak betas give into cravings. Do it for America. No pain, no gain.
Livid_Village4044@reddit
As I understand it, obesity is a physical disease like physical alcoholism. The gut bacteria is deranged, which has a lot to do with what foods are craved and in what quantity. There are epigenetic changes.
I have heard that obesity now kills more people than cigarettes.
degeneratelunatic@reddit
That's been true for at least 10 years, if not longer.
Smoking is a devil's bargain, as it increases your risk for a slew of illnesses but in most cases (but not all of course), you won't see the worst manifestations of those health effects until you're in your 60s.
Obesity causes nearly the same number of health problems smoking does, and then so many more on top of those, often much earlier in life as well.
seemorelight@reddit
But then once the people who suggest we regulate our food get into power they are insane conspiracists
flavius_lacivious@reddit
These massive recalls happening now are the result of right-wing agendas.
B4SSF4C3@reddit
I mean, yes, it’s easy to point at choices people are making vs the people providing bad options.
The lack of good regulation doesn’t absolve you as an individual from the responsibility to take care of yourself, and therefore to inform yourself on how to do that. That in turns should teach you what types of food to avoid.
Yes it would be nice to have regulations to make these things easier for individuals, not harder. But the fact is, many people do manage to maintain their health and weight despite this lack.
IncitefulInsights@reddit
But people are gluttons though.
There's no way to regulate caloric content. Even if it were, the gluttons would just order multiple portions, so wouldn't be effective.
dumnezero@reddit
The way you regulate caloric content is the way the body does: add more fiber and protein. Make sure food has plenty of fiber and protein, and people will feel full much before they can eat too much.
dumnezero@reddit
Regulating food would require regulating the supply too. I mean, I'd pay to watch that happen just for the entertainment value. Having read research on nutrition and epidemiology for about 2 decades now, it has become very clear what the mechanisms are and I can tell you that there is a lot of capital invested in the situation, a lot of shareholders, and a lot of subsidy beneficiaries.
slickneck4@reddit
2035: US now underweight
transplantpdxxx@reddit
Exactly. Leave people alone. The crops will dry up and obesity will be the least of our concerns.
Ra_Ru@reddit
Comparing it to the number from 1990 is especially stupid when you consider that they lowered the cut off in 1998. Most pro athletes are overweight or obese according to BMI. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/08/why-bmi-big-fat-scam/
Anachronism--@reddit
I know two people who would be technically overweight but only because they are so muscular and I know them both from my gym.
In the real world I see hundreds of unhealthy overweight people before I see one muscular person.
I can’t find any statistics on this but I bet the number of overweight but muscular people is low single digit percentage.
PushyTom@reddit
That's why I call it my tactical gut.
transplantpdxxx@reddit
Whenever people get super sick, they can lose 50lbs easily. Staying skinny isn’t a smart move.
DickBiter1337@reddit
You mean I could be skinny for once in my whole life?? 😍😍😍 move over ozempic, famines in town.
AyeYoThisIsSoHard@reddit
lol yeah I read the title and thought to myself “hmm wonder how long until that says 3/4s of US adults now underweight”
Hilda-Ashe@reddit
Good news, then? You can't have a civil war if no one is fit to be soldier.
Logical-Race8871@reddit
Obviously you've never seen an m2 machine gun mounted to a rascal scooter. But you gon lurn tuday
RoamingRivers@reddit
Front line meat shields.
Taqueria_Style@reddit
Just roll 'em at the enemy's front lines.
RoamingRivers@reddit
Even in death, they can still serve.
Ideal, improvised sandbags against small arms fire.
aglaophonos@reddit
Looking at the bright side
MilosDom403@reddit
Part of it is because most Americans don't walk anywhere. I spend part of the year in the USA working and part of the year back in Europe - the difference is like night and day with the number of people on the street outside of a car. Although we are starting to play catch up with obesity, unfortunately food problems are everywhere
jedrider@reddit
Don't forget, we Americans use the drive-thru! We can't even get out of our cars when given he opportunity.
OKCompE@reddit
Sit there stationary in our cars with the engine on and the AC cranked to full blast just to avoid having to look at each other or change out of our pajamas
NigilQuid@reddit
According to a BMI chart, I'm a just into the "overweight" category because I'm 5'7" and ~165 lbs. It wouldn't consider me underweight until I was less than 120 lbs. As a dude with a little bit of muscle this feels absolutely ridiculous. If I lost ten pounds I'd have shredded abs and be the fittest I've ever been. If I weighed 120 pounds I'd look emaciated and malnourished.
LeeKapusi@reddit
I work at Outback. The average American does not care at all about what they shovel in their mouth. I have entire families that don't order a single vegetable. 3 soft drinks and dessert. We just launched a drink that is a full glass of coke, pumps of gingerbread syrup, and topped with whipped cream. It's absolutely disgusting. People order it.
Maneisthebeat@reddit
That sounds absolutely vile.
But I don't get how Americans can eat like this? There is flavour complexity and joy to be had in so many natural foods, vegetables, funghi. Why just sugar on top of sugar? Is it just addiction? What about that feeling when you've eaten a healthy but satisfying meal and you don't feel heavy, or exhausted, but refreshed?
What happened to "Everything in moderation"? How are kids being raised? Does everyone know the health risks and not just care? Let alone just feeling the satisfaction of knowing you have taken care of your body, and you don't feel shame in seeing it?
Genuinely, as someone from over the pond, I want to get an insight. This proportion of people goes beyond corn syrup, this is a part of the general psyche.
LeeKapusi@reddit
A vast majority of Americans are brain dead. They don't even read the menu most of the time. They have no concept of moderation because they have the intelligence of a third grader and capitalism has taught them to over consume everything, including food. They want the most boring, bland food possible as long as it's drowned in oil and sugar.
IsItAnyWander@reddit
People not from the USA literally don't understand the propaganda and advertising we endure.
Taqueria_Style@reddit
It's more than trees.
It's more than bird song.
Fuck it's more than grains of sand on the beach. It's like in your damn soul eating it alive.
Joker_Anarchy@reddit
Unfortunately the American propaganda machine has now infiltrated Canada and we are seeing the rise of right wing lunatics.
ANoobInDisguise@reddit
Sugar is more addictive than cocaine and practicallly just as bad for you, especially in the form of HFCS. It's in fucking everything in the US because it's wholly unregulated. Most people literallly cannot avoid it.
FalseBuyer1716@reddit
Yes, sugar addiction is a very real aspect of American culture. While I despise the current rhetoric of eliminating it completely, the FDA is extremely inept (some would go as far as saying corrupt) at monitoring the amount of sugar and sweetener products within food. Most children's' cereal, juice, and many snacks have a relatively obscene amount of sweetness.
The other part of the equation revolves around American society. There are many parts of our country where groceries are extremely limited (one store within the surrounding five-ten miles) or non-existent. The MSM has just started talking about these 'food deserts' so I doubt they'll get fixed anytime soon. In these areas, you have no choice but to purchase incredibly processed and sugar dense foods. And that's not even to talk about how in poorer parts of the country, people will sometimes have so little faith in the water systems that they view fucking soda as the healthy choice.
Even for the middle-class, the combination of lack of time (most Americans who can, just from my own observations, tend to go on a grocery shopping trip once every two or three weeks - and I've stopped paying as much attention over the last decade so I'm sure it's worse now) and the propaganda from food companies really wears down that drive to eat healthy. It's really the top 10% which are able to consistently eat well, a number I'm sure will shrink in the coming years.
B4SSF4C3@reddit
I have an inlaw like this. We’re discussing dinner plans for Thanksgiving and my wife mentions a Brussels sprouts dish and he’s like “who’s gonna eat that, Thanksgiving isn’t for vegetables!” The dude had a heart attack and a major bypass surgery not even 10 years ago. Totally unrelated, I’m sure.
Isbe-red@reddit
Some Americans just need to be reintroduced to good vegetables. All they know is frozen peas and carrots dumped into a meat-cheese casserole.
I say 'some' because just reading the word brussels sprouts makes my mouth water in anticipation to go to a BBQ place here in Texas.
theskyfoogle18@reddit
I love veggies but Brussels sprouts just smell like someone threw a diaper in the oven when they cook. I cannot get past it.
lil_kleintje@reddit
Just sauteed frozen peas/ carrots, cauliflower/ broccoli mix for our dinner. It's actually delicious and takes five minutes max (I am a lazy cook with a chronic pain condition)
LeeKapusi@reddit
Oh yeah I have at least one adult a week proclaim proudly that they don't eat veggies. I wish I was making this up.
NancyAnnGrace@reddit
I have an older coworker who jests that vegetarian is an old indian word for bad hunter.
justwalkingalonghere@reddit
This happens pretty often in my experience. A lot of men proclaiming they don't eat "rabbit food" or "that's the food my food eats"
thatfunkyspacepriest@reddit
I have a coworker like this… idk how she’s alive tbh.
Always_drew@reddit
Well, at least when I go out to eat, which is rare, last thing on my mind is health. I’m eating unhealthy and tasty. If I want healthy food, I make it at home.
Idk if that’s atypical or not, I’m just saying that you don’t follow those families home and know their actual diets.
LeeKapusi@reddit
Oh trust me you can tell their diets just by looking at them. What they eat at a restaurant is just an extension of their broader diet, not an outlier. 3/4 of Americans aren't obese because they occasionally eat unhealthy at a restaurant, it's because coke is buy one get one and it's easier to lay around and melt your brain on Facebook while chugging sugar than to get on a treadmill.
teamsaxon@reddit
The key to being any amount of healthy is to actually think about the food you are eating.. And not just shovel it in -BUT there are factors that affect this. I have been on both sides of food binges and food restrictions. Taking either to extremes is not healthy or sustainable. In general most days I look at certain foods or fast food joints and just think they are oily and fatty and horrible. It's actually gross. However, when in a depressive episode I care much much less about whether or not the foods are any good.
Taqueria_Style@reddit
AND SHORTEN LIFE EXPECTANCY
Good news fellow Bohemian Grovers, I think the Social Security fund is saved.
FruitFlavor12@reddit
US Patent Nos. 4,940,835 and 5,188,642 from the early 1990’s were key patents for the genetically engineered crops industry. The patents were issued to agricultural giant Monsanto, and patented a technique to for genetically altered plant seeds so that the plants could be resistant to glycophospate-containing herbicide. In the early 1990s, the Flavr Savr tomato became first genetically engineered crop to be commercialized. Researchers at Calgene, a biotech company in California, were able to find the gene that was involved in the softening process of the tomato, and then developed technology to get rid of that gene. The technology was innovative, and gained buzz in the media and excitement from consumers. The Flavr Savr tomato saw initial success in the market, but by 1997 production ceased. Many attribute Calgene’s failure to their lack of agricultural production knowledge. They were a biotech industry, and not an agricultural company that specialized in the farming and transportation of tomatoes. Despite the failure of the GE tomato, the industry has since flourished. Monsanto acquired Calgene, and acquired all of their cutting edge patents with it. This deal greatly changed the GMO industry. Calgene was praised for its transparency in developing the Flavr Savr tomato by labeling the product and including a brochure. Their tomato was also marketed towards the consumer to benefit them, but “commercially successful Genetically Engineered crops were things that farmers might want to plant,” Dan Charles of NPR.
https://edblogs.columbia.edu/scppx3335-001-2014-1/2014/03/12/a-history-of-gmos-from-the-lab-to-the-supermarket/
George HW Bush deregulated the food industry in the US starting at the end of the 1980s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGqkwEO0SmA&pp=ygUVR2VvcmdlIGJ1c2ggTW9uc2FudG8g
loveinvein@reddit
Spoiler: thin people ALSO get diabetes and heart disease. Shortening lifespans is not due to weight, and is a complicated situation where the stress of experiencing oppression is known to cause health problems (such as diabetes and heart disease), and a weight neutral approach to healthcare (sometimes called Health at every Size) has a better impact on measures of health than weight loss.
Additionally: The yardstick that defines the threshold for “overweight” and “obesity” is based on racist pseudoscience. So we don’t have a clear metric where we can universally define a point at which someone’s body is the wrong size.
Nevermind all the healthy fat people and unhealthy thin people in the world.
Public health is in a bad place right now, but throwing fat people under the bus isn’t helping.
Research
Support for Weight-Neutral Care
Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift Lindo Bacon, Lucy Aphramor https://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-2891-10-9 This paper evaluates the evidence and rationale that justifies shifting the health care paradigm from a conventional weight focus to a weight-neutral focus.
Size acceptance and intuitive eating improve health for obse female chronic dieters Lindo Bacon, Judith S Stern, Marta D Van Loan, Nancy L Keim https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15942543 HAES approach resulted in improved health risk indicators
Relationship Between Low Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Mortality in Normal-Weight, Overweight, and Ob*se Men Ming Wei, MD, MPH; James B. Kampert, PhD; Carolyn E. Barlow, MS; et al https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/192035 Relative risk of all-cause mortality was similarly mitigated by fitness, regardless of BMI
Healthy Lifestyle Habits and Mortality in Overweight and Ob*se Individuals Eric M. Matheson, Dana E. King and Charles J. Everett https://www.jabfm.org/content/25/1/9.abstract?etoc Healthy Habits were associated with a similarly significant decrease in mortality regardless of BMI
Stigma in Practice: Barriers to Health for Fat Women Jennifer A. Lee, Cat J. Pausé https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02063/full An exploration of barriers to healthcare for fat people, including structural and institutional policies, attitudes, and practices.
Recognizing the Fundamental Right to be Fat: A Weight-Inclusive Approach to Size Acceptance and Healing From Sizeism Rachel M. Calogera, Tracy L. Tylka, Janell L. Mensinger, Angela Meadows, Sigrun Daníelsdóttir https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02703149.2018.1524067 An exploration of issues with the Weight Normative Approach, the benefits of a Weight Inclusive Approach, and strategies for therapists to align their practice with a Weight Inclusive Approach
What’s wrong with the ‘war on ob*sity?’ A narrative review of the weight-centered health paradigm and development of the 3C Framework to build critical competency for a paradigm shift. Lily O’Hara and Jane Taylor https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244018772888 Critique of the weight-centered health paradigm and review of the literature around the ineffectiveness and harms of the weight-centered approach.
The weight-inclusive versus weight-normative approach to health: evaluating the evidence for prioritizing well-being over weight loss Tracy L Tylka, Rachel A Annunziato, Deb Burgard, Sigrún Daníelsdóttir, Ellen Shuman, Chad Davis, Rachel Calogero https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4132299/ Review of the data on weight and health, including ineffectiveness and harms of dieting, health effects of weight stigma, and data behind a weight-inclusive approach.
Ob*sity treatment: Weight loss versus increasing fitness and physical activity for reducing health risks Gaesser and Angadi https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(21)00963-9 Makes the case for weight-neutral care over intentional weight loss
The body politic: the relationship between stigma and ob*sity-associated disease Peter Muennig https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2386473/ Examines the relationship between weight stigma and health issues, and finds that weight stigma may drive health issues that are typically blamed on body size.
I Think Therefore I Am: Perceived Ideal Weight as a Determinant of Health Peter Muennig https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2253567/ Found that the difference between actual and desired body weight was a stronger predictor of physical and mental health than body mass index (BMI)
Dismantling weight stigma in eating disorder treatment: Next steps for the field McEntee, Philip & Phelan https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10126256/
Issues with Weight-Loss/Dieting as a Healthcare Intervention
Validity of claims made in weight management research: a narrative review of dietetic articles Lucy Aphramor https://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-2891-9-30 The best available evidence demonstrates that conventional weight management has a high long-term failure rate. The ethical implications of continued reliance on an energy deficit approach to weight management are under-explored.
How effective are traditional dietary and exercise interventions for weight loss? W.C. Miller https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10449014 The data that exists suggest almost complete weight regain after 3-5 years
Medicare’s search for effective ob*sity treatments: diets are not the answer Traci Mann, Janet Tomiyama https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/17469900 Almost all dieters regain all the weight, many regain more
Long‐term Effects of Dieting: Is Weight Loss Related to Health? Janet Tomiyama, Britt Ahlstrom, Traci Mann https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/spc3.12076 Dieting was not shown to be correlated with improved health outcomes.
Probability of an Obse Person Attaining Normal Body Weight: Cohort Study Using Electronic Health Records A. Fildes et. al https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4539812/ The annual probability of achieving normal body weight was 1 in 210 for men and 1 in 124 for women with simple obsity. The probability declined with increasing BMI category
velvetvortex@reddit
It looks like you are the one who is advocating poor science. And the word obesity doesn’t need scare quotes or censorship with an asterisk.
WVC_Least_Glamorous@reddit
It's not a bug. It's a feature.
richardtrle@reddit
This is shocking, so it means that nearly over 200 million people are obese or overweight.
I realized how much of a problem this is. I am working for a US based company.
The majority of the US employees are overweight or obese. Like by a large margin.
Once we were talking about losing weight in one of our casual meetings and people started talking about food and beverage, it was embarrassing, but it usually goes like that. They love junk food, they love beer.
kay14jay@reddit
These stats indicate that I am likley in the upper quartile of fastest people in the US. Wanna race?
Straight-Razor666@reddit
it's a massive problem
humongous_rabbit@reddit
Bro 🤙😄
6sixtynoine9@reddit
I see what you did there
Occumsmachete@reddit
Well that explains it
Sam_Eu_Sou@reddit
Just to stay current with events--I listened to this while eating after my third 36-hour fast this month. I'm not overweight or obese, but I've started this practice to ensure I'm far from ever becoming so-- not to mention the benefits of autophagy (senescent cell clean-up, excess fat burning, gut microbiome reset, etc.).
I highly recommend Dr. Mindy Pelz's book "Fast Like a Girl" and YouTube channel for women in particular.
I follow the science that supports fasting and will continue to focus on myself and the small communities I nurture during this "collapse"---minding my own business.
syskb@reddit
Meanwhile I have weighed 100-110lbs since middle school and I’m in my 20s now it’s scary how many people are literally double, triple or more my size. I seriously don’t understand how people get that big when it seems like an impossible task for me to gain even 5lbs.
Maj0r-DeCoverley@reddit
Honest question here (I swear I'm not being malicious). What's it like? You go outside, and everyone is fat..? Including the kids?? Sometimes I watch random documentaries, I remember one which was in Québec, and it striked me how nearly everyone seemed... Personally I would say "overweight", but perhaps sturdy. Stumpy.
I think about this because earlier today I've seen a fat person. A new guy, going out of work, in a familiar place with more than a hundred workers, and here he was. And I thought "out of the ordinary: they have a far person now". It's a bit like living in a rural area where nothing happens, and out of the blue you see East-Asian people for instance. You know they exist. You know your country have a few percent of people of East-Asian ethnicity. But it's an mini-event to see them passing by and exchanging a simple hello.
The more I write the more I feel stupid with my question... But it's weird you know. The only fat person I know is my grandmother, and she's 85. I remember I had a fat friend once, it was 10 years ago. Everytime I see obese people I expect them to speak in a foreign language, because usually they do.
So I was wondering: what does the opposite situation feels like.
BitchfulThinking@reddit
Also not being malicious, but... kind of? I'm in CA, where we're known for being one of the healthier states. This is true to extent, since we do have great hiking and outdoor activities, Hollywood/entertainment industry, and a refreshing amount of plant based food options. We're generally known for being obsessed with appearance, so extreme surgeries, diets, drugs, and eating disorders are part of it as well- it's honestly mostly those here, and not only women. People don't care so much about the healthy aspect.
I'm a barely 5'4 woman and small here, fairly average in Asia, but I feel absolutely dwarfed by some children in both height and mass here. People don't walk in the more suburban and rural areas, and it's becoming even more rare because of rising crime. Everything has become almost menacingly larger, with more widened roads, larger trucks, and bulkier everything.
I feel like this psychologically makes people feel like "There's still room to grow! Keep consuming!" We were raised on all you can eat buffets, companies told us what to eat since we were children, greedy ranchers forced copius meat consumption on everyone, and our food is generally made of microplastics and corn syrup (and why my preserves are from your country lol). Our options are limited, everything is too expensive, and no one has time or energy to cook because somehow people buy "Uncrustables".
Anyone with differing diets (eg. vegans, food allergies) will catch hell from some people (eg. Texas), so there's a lot of social pressure around food. Additionally, a lot of us come from cultures where overeating, and overfeeding children is considered the norm, or even virtuous. It's often the result of historical hardships and trauma, like hoarding, and it carries on in our DNA, so we end up predisposed to weight gain and it becomes more difficult to lose. You can see it in countries with heavy US military influence. Spam and American cheese ends up on everything in time.
I also think about the stretchy fabrics commonly worn now, compared to structured vintage garments. It's easy to be aware of weight gain when there isn't any ease in a fabric, but almost everyone is wearing athleisure all the time.
I think we're mostly a nation of people with body dysmorphia. Falsified social media is basically our lives now. We've become unaware of our actual selves and the problem got out of hand... Which could also be said about our manners and political views 🙃
Geaniebeanie@reddit
Welp, yeah. Everybody is fat (myself included). I lived back in the days before we had this epidemic (and I wasn’t fat) and it’s an interesting difference. Back in the day, if you were just a bit overweight you got made fun of sometimes. Now that little bit of weight would look good.
The thing about being fat, and every one around you being fat, is that it messes up your perception: you’re just so used to it that when you see a normal size person, they look too thin to you. Even I’m guilty of this, and I’m smart enough to know that the person is a healthy weight. Still, it’s all in what you get used to seeing.
IM_NOT_BALD_YET@reddit
When I was in school, you had "the" fat kid in school. There was just the one. Maybe a handful if you had a large school. It just wasn't normal. And they were usually bullied, if they weren't the class clown to hide behind.
Now I see toddlers all the time that look like they could have been on a Maury show back in the 90s. Teenagers who are larger than the fattest adults I ever saw growing up. I honestly can't think of the last time I saw someone else at a healthy weight. Even people that I knew as thin/healthy adults are now huge at middle age.
nymphetamine-x-girl@reddit
Where (roughly/regionally) do you live? Im a size 8 right now- US size- and feel like the office whale.
IM_NOT_BALD_YET@reddit
Until recently, NoVa. Now, Cleveland.
A size 8 today is roughly what a size 14 was in the 90s. Vanity sizing strikes again. About a decade ago, it was reported that the average size of an American woman was a size 16. A quick google says that a size 16 in the 2000s is now a size 12. We are absolute planets today compared to even a decade ago, but the sizing will make everyone feel better about it.
Maj0r-DeCoverley@reddit
Interesting. Thanks
I guess that in terms of perception, we must be pretty fatphobic without even realizing it, over here. Simply because any fat person stands out more
Causerae@reddit
"you go outside"
No.
Thus, the problem.
Tbf, I side-eye the whole "dependent on cars so obese," logic bc it's about diet. That said, it's hard to eat while playing soccer or taking a brisk walk. Every minute spent doing nearly anything but eating, is time spent not eating.
nymphetamine-x-girl@reddit
Can I ask your average food and drink consumption on a Tuesday and a Saturday? I am in loss mode as an American that has been both under and overweight and it really feels like, from media, that if I ate what is presented as an average French diet, that I'd weigh 300lbs. Based on the focus on breads, butter, meat, and cheese. Eating "the Mediterranean diet" can net me weight loss over time but I couldn't imagine losing a lot with what we percieve as the French diet.
In fact, for a few years, I ate every lunch at a French consulate and everything seemed so rich that I was shocked I didn't gain weight (though I lost none either).
Ok_Main3273@reddit
Good question. I struggle with giving you an explanation because the French diet, let's face it, is full of cream, cheese, sugar (all those pastries and cakes and tartes), alcohol, etc. usually consumed over hours-long meals.
To give you an idea of my childhood family weekends: everyone arrived at about 11am, to start eating at 12am after entrees and apero (drinks) until 4pm. While the women were doing the dishes, the men walked around the block for a little while, playing with the kids. Then, at about 5pm, it was always the same ritual: "We must really get going now." "Non, non, you should stay for dinner. We have a few nibbles in the fridge and can fix something quickly." Then it was all in for another six hours of non-stop binging, with guests leaving shortly before midnight, our bellies absolutely distended. And it was the same EVERY. SINGLE. WEEKEND. Some of my family members were already huge but us, kids, were all skinny.
Possible reasons: walking and biking everywhere + each meal had a huge dose of fresh vegetables and fruits + a lot of the food came from family gardens.
I would be interested to hear from u/maj0r-DeCoveley if it is still the same today.
EmbarrassingAlttt@reddit (OP)
It’s pretty normalized. You just get used to seeing larger people everywhere. An interesting side-effect is that normal-weight people will sometimes get called too skinny or bony. They’re a healthy weight, but we’ve lost all sense of what a healthy weight is actually supposed to look like.
woollywanderer@reddit
People absolutely lose a sense of what a healthy weight is. I recently moved to Texas from Europe, and I'm about 20 pounds overweight per BMI. In Europe my doctor gently encouraged me to watch what I eat and get some more exercise. Just had a doctor's appointment here and they complimented me on being so "trim." And I had been lighter when I last saw my doc in Germany. I was shocked.
Maj0r-DeCoverley@reddit
That's shocking indeed. At least the doctor keeps a positive mindset !
Maj0r-DeCoverley@reddit
Thanks !
I weight 152lbs for just under 6 ft tall. I wonder if I would get called skinny ahahahah. Said with those units, I feel like I'm Dwayne Johnson (but apparently 69 kilos is 152lbs, which is a lot of lbs)
sailsaucy@reddit
If you're from France, that may be part of it. Come to the US where a single serving size of even one meal is probably more than you all consume in a day lol
DeleteriousDiploid@reddit
The figures are skewed heavily by some regions such that some places it's really common whereas others you don't see it much. When I went to the US I got the impression that the stereotypes about American being fat were all wrong. I just wasn't seeing all that many truly huge people and most people seemed pretty much the same as anywhere else. But that was New York. The further West I went the more it became noticeable until one day when I found myself in a Wal-Mart in the middle of the country where seemingly every second person was on mobility scooter with rolls of fat spilling out the sides of the chair. One guy walking around with an armful of giant sized bags of chips and multiple three litre soda bottles may have been the largest person I've ever seen upright. It was rather impressive.
Then if you carry on West until you hit the coast it mostly calms down again.
lifeofrevelations@reddit
oompa loompas everywhere
demon_dopesmokr@reddit
lol, this is what happens when 3% of the global population consume a third of the words resources.
OxytocinOD@reddit
Lmfaoooooo
MauriceMonroe@reddit
El_Bistro@reddit
Live look at redditors
CaptainBirdEnjoyer@reddit
Ngl I could go for a cupcake in a cup after the last two weeks.
foboat@reddit
sep-two-ah-centennial
dumnezero@reddit
Not much to say.
Not really. Those are great, but you can get those frozen or conserved just as well, but their lack is not that important to obesity, it's important to many other diseases.
The layers of causes are more like:
However, pointing out genes is useless, as that's something you can't change, nor are they that important. There have been many studies showing how migrants become obese when moving to the US, so it's clearly something in the society, culture, and chemical environment.
Oh, and, as usual, there's a clown doctor who tries to blame everything on sugary drinks, despite the fact that sugary drink consumption has been going down for many years. Perhaps it was what people were washing down with the sugary drink and now they get a "zero calorie" drink to wash the same stuff down?
Ok_Main3273@reddit
Maybe "sugary drink consumption has been going down for many years", but have you looked at the ingredients list of random food products at your local supermarket? A gigantic quantity of them contain "added sugar" (under various names as per list attached). It took me two months to become vegan but ONE YEAR to get over my addiction to sugar (including long periods of cheating with honey then maple syrup then those 'energy balls' made of 90% date puree). I can tell you that nobody wanted to talk to me in the office during my first few weeks of detox, due to headaches and severe crankiness 😂
My current observations (read: scanning constituents of every product I buy) confirm that this is getting worse and worse. Actually, this discovery generated a lot of anger in me – directed at the food industry that makes us all addicts – something that helped me to stay strong in my resolve despite several set backs at the time.
dumnezero@reddit
Have you looked at the amount of or percent of those ingredients? Let me know.
Ok_Main3273@reddit
I am not looking at the percentage, I am looking at the ingredients list. I no longer buy any food with added sugar (I still buy fresh fruits that contain natural sugars). Great way to almost completely eliminate all junk food. Took me a long time to get there but I feel the better for it.
dumnezero@reddit
I'm glad that you read about UPFs, but if you don't know what toxicity is in terms of dose/response, your list is useless. The NOVA classification is a weird way to understand the basic idea that you should be eating a whole foods plant-based diet. It's weird because it essentially demonizes processed foods, leading to a type of moral panic. You think you found some great "rule of thumb", but it's not a scientific approach. The classification system is shit. Which means that if you rely on it, you're about to get scammed by the food industry in novel ways.
Ok_Main3273@reddit
Am vegan for ethical and environmental reasons. I am no-sugar-added for health reasons because I am a simple man who needs a simple rule to avoid junk food 😅 (A plant based diet can be very unhealthy if I was to eat again a lot of sugary pastries, blocks of chocolate and processed snacks, even if egg- and dairy-free.)
dumnezero@reddit
Right, then you know that WFPB is older than UPF. We've been criticizing processed stuff for a very long time.
But just because you find a psychological crutch to control your behavior, it doesn't mean that it's the best generally, as evidence with science.
Be careful not to become "raw vegan", that's too far.
The problem with UPFs is that they are cheap. That's also a good thing if you're poor and need food. That's a complicated debate.
You can make dangerously delicious pastries, chocolates and other sweets at home, fully plant-based. It doesn't have to be processed, it's just high effort.
Here's some reading on the nuances:
https://tabledebates.org/letterbox/is-the-ultra-processed-food-concept-useful
https://tabledebates.org/research-library/responses-study-ultra-processed-foods-and-weight-gain
It's good that you read labels, but read the stats too. The quantity of each ingredient also matters.
Ok_Main3273@reddit
Thank you for the links. I love my (plant based) pies, curries and burgers too much to ever go 'raw vegan', a restriction that indeed is a step too far. And you are right about me needing a "psychological crutch": I have no will power and used to eat an entire block of chocolate in one go (I still do it but only this one, with sultanas, that's my treat LOL).
dumnezero@reddit
I've managed to learn to limit to about 2 squares per day max of the dark chocolate stuff, but I know what you mean. I used to have a huge sweet tooth.
Background-Head-5541@reddit
"The paper defined “overweight” adults as those who were age 25 and over with a body mass index at or over 25, and “obese” adults as those with a B.M.I. at or over 30. The authors acknowledged that B.M.I. is an imperfect measure that may not capture variations in body structure across the population."
VictoryForCake@reddit
Yeah BMI is an eyeballing figure but it is never good one. Even when I was thinner and way fitter in my early 20's, I still counted as overweight to almost obese even though I was incredibly fit simply because I was very broad and muscular. Nearly got rejected from a job that required good fitness because BMI is a useless indicator, and the doctor made note of that in my report, and they ignored it.
Its works as intended as a large metric for overall pools of data where the averages can even out peaks or outliers, but for individuals it can be inaccurate.
BMI was a case study when I was doing biostatistics as how scale is important for the accuracy of certain metrics, and how you need to interpret the data.
11SomeGuy17@reddit
I wouldn't call it useless. Its flawed but that's because its really hard to get accurate muscle to fat ratios on a given individual. Honestly though, it's not hard to see if you're overweight. If your stomach jiggles when you bounce, congratulations, you're overweight (even if only a bit). Stomach should be tight. Its legitimately that easy. If your ribs are visible with your arms down, you're underweight. However BMI is most useful for measuring general population trends. Unless 75% of the US are body builders then this means they're probably unhealthy. Now, if 75% of the US was body builders, we'd need a different metric as obviously BMI would be useless.
_PurpleSweetz@reddit
Well, yeah, but how often do you see guys these days chiseled out? The BMI scale doesn’t take into account muscle va fat against height+age, only overall weight against height and age. So the numbers are definitely lower than reported here. But, cmon, not by a significant factor.
BoulderBlackRabbit@reddit
Actually, BMI is far, FAR more likely to call you "normal weight" when you're too fat than to call you fat when you're muscular. See here. Quote:
If you add up the people in America who are obese, overweight, or overfat (those with a body composition that's poor enough to be detrimental to health), it's at 91 percent. That means all you have to be is a normal weight with some muscle, and you're in the top 9 percent of Americans.
It's terrifying.
nymphetamine-x-girl@reddit
I will say, my size 00-4 friends are more likely to be DEXA-obese on scans at 120-130lbs than my sporty friends at 140-155lbs. But DEXA doesn't have the same health effect as BMI.
Skinny fat folk aren't dying in droves from heart disease and diabetes. And fit overweight folk aren't fairing much better than their unfit weight-matched peers.
BoulderBlackRabbit@reddit
I'm sorry, but the statistics say it's actually very dangerous, especially if you carry extra weight around your midsection. Quote:
See also here.
Everyone who can should lift weights.
MaxMonsterGaming@reddit
The question is how many people are overweight from being fat vs. having muscle?
karabeckian@reddit
80/20 would be a generous estimate.
dumnezero@reddit
The people who complain about BMI don't understand scientific modeling and public health as the context for using tests like BMI. Sure, it would be great if every medical facility, every family doctor, had a Dual X-ray Absorptiometry scanner, but it would require decades upon decades of having those get new relevant literature. The critics of BMI or even just weight measured on a scale do not comprehend the problem. We're not going to abandon a century of research data because some nerds said: "well, aktually!☝️🤓"
Ok_Impression5805@reddit
Thats what happens when you have people sit around 8+ hours a day doing capitalism or capitalist 'education' while simultaneously feeding them capitalist processed garbage.
Factory farming for wage slaves.
DeleteriousDiploid@reddit
One of the things I found most sickening about the US was how it went out of its way to empower the morbidly obese to stay morbidly obese. ie. catering to their every need even if it meant inconveniencing everyone else.
When I went to the space centre in Houston there was a bunch of morbidly obese Americans on the tour which actively delayed us (in the scorching sun) by an hour because they simply refused to walk up stairs. Every time the tour stopped at a building the guide would inform us about it, the history, purpose etc then tell us how many stairs we needed to climb to enter and how there was an elevator for those who needed it (which only took a couple of them at a time and was very slow). It didn't matter if it was ten steps or one hundred - these people would not climb them and would go straight for the elevator. They had the first carriage on the tour train/bus thing (reserved specially for the least able) so they had the least amount to walk and they spent literally the entire tour slurping down litres of soda and cramming their faces with chips. At one point the tour guide even informed us that one stop was the last place to get 'refreshments' so naturally they rushed to the vending machines to restock and left the tour waiting on them. WALL-E really was presient.
The worst offenders were a group of two families that I suspect were two sisters with their husbands though I'm mostly face blind and all of them just looked like cumbersome grease-stained orbs to me. Both couples had two or three children who were likewise hideously out of shape and eating the whole tour.
When we came to the peak of the tour - the mission control centre they ended up in the seats right up the front of the viewing room because they were given priority and took the elevator - that building had the most stairs so it took everyone else time to get up there. Their kids then spent the entire presentation smearing the glass with sticky fingerprints because they'd consumed enough sugar and fat in the last hour to make sitting still for five minutes physically impossible.
The really galling part of all of this is that also on the tour with us was a couple in their 80s who had worked at the space centre during the Apollo program, met there and had been married ever since. It was the first time they had visited since they stopped working there. Both of them had walking sticks and were very slow to get to each building meaning the morbidly obese families got there first. As such the elderly couple were the last up in the lift at the mission control building and there were no seats for them by the time they got up there. The tour guide had to ask people to give up their seats for them - but obviously not the morbidly obese front row who were too busy finishing off their third litre of soda to even notice.
videogametes@reddit
Not sure if you traveled above the Mason Dixon line at all, but the weight discrepancy between the northern states and the southern states is insane. I live/grew up in the north but my family is all in the south, and even just going to a Walmart down there is a shock to me because there are just… no thin people. Not unless you go to bougie areas, and even then there are a lot more fat people than there would be in St. Paul or NYC or Philly. Midwest has a similar issue but not as bad as the south.
It’s definitely tied to southern comfort food culture. Walkable cities tend to have fewer fat people than rural areas as well, and I literally cannot think of a single walkable southern city. I’m sure the ones that exist are too hot to be alive in, let alone walking around all the time. A lot of places in the Middle East have obesity issues for the same reasons (car centric culture in hot places).
Aggravating-Scene548@reddit
That is very dystopian, I'm sure the old couple are wonderful where their lovely old world went
Hey_Look_80085@reddit
I'm doing my part!
LetGo_n_LetDarwin@reddit
Considering what is coming our way, it may be an advantage to be overweight. The thin people will starve first.
pdx2las@reddit
Nah. I give it a week before tubby runs out of his diabetus meds. Then we'll just raid his fridge.
BTRCguy@reddit
The problem is that when three-quarters of adults are doing a particular thing, convincing a majority of the population that their lifestyle is a problem is...difficult. I mean, we could not even convince half the adult population that Trump was a bad idea...
We have normalized the humanity of Wall-E.
EmbarrassingAlttt@reddit (OP)
SS: This relates to collapse because of the huge impact this will have on our healthcare at a time of uncertainty for the US. From the article:
Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, according to a sweeping new study. The findings have wide-reaching implications for the nation’s health and medical costs as it faces a growing burden of weight-related diseases.
The study, published on Thursday in The Lancet, reveals the striking rise of obesity rates nationwide since 1990 — when just over half of adults were overweight or obese — and shows how more people are becoming overweight or obese at younger ages than in the past. Both conditions can raise the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, and shorten life expectancy.
RescuesStrayKittens@reddit
Three quarters? That is genuinely difficult for me to wrap my head around. More than half, sure. I did not expect it to be so high.
nessarocks28@reddit
If they count people like me. I’m 5’1 and have skinny, toned legs and arms. A quick look people say I’m skinny. But I have a lot of unhealthy fat around my mid section that I hide. And I’m actually diagnosed with pre diabetes. It’s been extremely difficult to get rid of. I’ll lose weight everywhere else, including muscle, before my bod lets go of any of that mid-section fat. I’ll drop weight but the stomach fat still measures the same amount. 😣
Proof_Ad3692@reddit
It's partially bc it's based on BMI which is complete bullshit. I'm not saying that there isn't an obesity crisis or that the food isn't mostly poison (especially for poor people), but by BMI, I'm overweight at 6'4 200 lbs and I am pretty healthy/would not be identified as overweight by sight at all.
teamsaxon@reddit
BMI is rubbish. It doesn't account for outliers and just uses an average. Not everyone is an average height.
dumnezero@reddit
I found the mp3 audio version of the article. Right click and save as, make sure it has the mp3 extension when naming it. Browsers should be able to play it.
Bentulrich3@reddit
damn, maybe deregulating your food production while subsidizing the production of HFCS to hell and back has... GASP, Consequences??????
ideknem0ar@reddit
I have a huge garden and a lot of my food comes out of it - just finished a huge batch of veggie soup - but open a bag of Cheetohs and I'm also so right there. I won't knock that little devil off my shoulder.
Repulsive-Theory-477@reddit
Primed for extravagant medical billing
patchyhair@reddit
Thank goodness for rfk jr
LongmontStrangla@reddit
How in the fuck can this be true?
dumnezero@reddit
It's hard to see when people wear rolling exo-suits everywhere, more so now with drive-thru intensifying.
lilith_-_-@reddit
I’m just curious, is it based off or bmi? My bmi is 29 but I’m pretty much solid muscle
marratj@reddit
Look around you. Do you really think majority of people are solid muscle?
lilith_-_-@reddit
Nope
jykke@reddit
Yes, it doesn't take into account the amount of muscle. For example, Arnold Schwarzenegger's competition weight was 235 lbs, so BMI would be 30.3. But waist was 34" 😀
Magus_Necromantiae@reddit
About 10 years ago the combined US overweight/obesity rate was about 70% with 33% obese. Today, it's 43% obese.
aglaophonos@reddit
Wow, that is alarming
nymphetamine-x-girl@reddit
I'm a low size M (size 8 US) and I'm the fastest person in my office. In the very large building, there's a decent amount of overweight people (probably 20%) but they are retired once already (over 60). There are probably 1-ibdmorbidly obese personnel.
But I do live in one of the fittest areas of the country. And one of the highest earning counties of the country. So I assume that it's quite fit here because people can afford higher quality food and better fitness partners.
We're I'm from probably 70% of people are morbidly obese and 10% are underweight drug addicts. It's because they are min-maxing cals+prep time in order to work more and more hours because normal jobs cannot support you, even in deeply rural areas due to costs.
nymphetamine-x-girl@reddit
Eh, 15 years ago when I was in health class, 65% of Americans were overweight or obese. This doesn't seem like some new crisis but rather a long standing one. We didn't collapse 15 years ago why would the collapse be worsened by another few %?
Inevitable-Lettuce99@reddit
Is this just bmi data?
Inevitable-Lettuce99@reddit
My question here is the definition of overweight are they just using data by BMI?
abelabelabel@reddit
You guys. We did it.
Benzjie@reddit
Please don't take the world's collapse literally!
grassisgreener42@reddit
I’ll have to pay more attention then next few days, I would’ve guessed closer to half. Could be I also live in a less fat than average area, cuz I’m sure there’s some parts of the country that are close to 100% obesity.
Electrical_Print_798@reddit
I dunno, I may be glad for these few extra pounds when the food shortages hit.
EarthBear@reddit
Not for long once food gets so expensive thanks to incoming tariffs no one can afford to eat!
Aromatic_Physics_559@reddit
You make food that barely meets the standard for human consumption with the cheapest ingredients available then load it with sugar, artificial flavors and food coloring. It's not food it's a conduit for profit maximization in the form of something resembling food.
That75252Expensive@reddit
If only we had a medicine that could solve this...
IM_NOT_BALD_YET@reddit
…or nutrition education and a food production system that produced food without sugar at a price that was accessible to all.
That75252Expensive@reddit
None of that funnels money to the pharmaceutical industry.
IM_NOT_BALD_YET@reddit
For sure. Just pointing out that a medicine "that could solve this" is hardly a real solution.
Goran01@reddit
This is absolutely one of the biggest challenges for the US; a population suffering from chronic illness will contribute to the collapse of the economy, lower quality of life and life expectancy.
GoblinAirStrike_311@reddit
Big high-fructose corn syrup industry feeding their victims to big diabetes pharma, big kidney dialysis clinics, and big ozempic.
Americans get fat. They seek treatment. They get prescriptions.
The rich benefit.
gamesexposed@reddit
"can shorten life expectancy"?
Well now, you've had my curiosity but now you have my attention.
urlach3r@reddit
That's the "morbid" in "morbidly obese".
Cpt_Folktron@reddit
The tall skinny figure has thrown the oats at me. ME, BROTHER.
Particular-Jello-401@reddit
It is soooooo easy to never ever put on any weight, have flat stomach and just the right amount of fat. Here is the secret: eat only food you grow organically eat it fresh from the garden. We eat a little meat(that we raise), some dairy that we get from goats. I only buy coffee, EVOO, nutrional yeast, sea weed, salt and organic oats. Everything else is from the back yard. I never work out and eat anything I want whenever I want and am the same weight as I was at 18(when I swam, ran CC, and played soccer)now I’m 44. We have something sweet about once a month which I love( we will make goat milk ice cream, or a cake). It is sooooo easy to have a great body with no exercise or worry. Why so many make such a big deal I will never understand. Raise all your own food and cook it all yourself and you will always look and feel good. If you are not into farming just buy all you groceries from your local organic farmers market, and cook them in olive oil with a little salt.
StatementBot@reddit
The following submission statement was provided by /u/EmbarrassingAlttt:
SS: This relates to collapse because of the huge impact this will have on our healthcare at a time of uncertainty for the US. From the article:
Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, according to a sweeping new study. The findings have wide-reaching implications for the nation’s health and medical costs as it faces a growing burden of weight-related diseases.
The study, published on Thursday in The Lancet, reveals the striking rise of obesity rates nationwide since 1990 — when just over half of adults were overweight or obese — and shows how more people are becoming overweight or obese at younger ages than in the past. Both conditions can raise the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, and shorten life expectancy.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1gsd87d/three_quarters_of_us_adults_are_now_overweight_or/lxdcs53/
xwing_n_it@reddit
Keep it up gang, we're almost there!
imminentjogger5@reddit
rookie numbers