Obesity is high and holding steady in the U.S. About 4 in 10 Americans have obesity overall and about 1 in 10 have severe obesity.
September 24, 2024
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Obesity is high and holding steady in the U.S., but the proportion of those with severe obesity — especially women — has climbed since a decade ago, according to new government research.
The U.S. obesity rate is about 40%, according to a 2021-2023 survey of about 6,000 people. Nearly 1 in 10 of those surveyed reported severe obesity, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. Women were nearly twice as likely as men to report severe obesity.
The overall obesity rate appeared to tick down vs. the 2017-2020 survey, but the change wasn’t considered statistically significant; the numbers are small enough that there’s mathematical chance they didn’t truly decline.
The western capitalist diet has too little nutrition, too many addictive harmful chemicals, (corn syrup, sucralose etc) and too much meat/egg/dairy product in it.
Everyone's fat, but that doesn't mean they're well fed.
Obesity is a such a deceptive disease. The majority of people regain significant or even more weight after losing it, even with surgery and the long term dependency on drugs to maintain loss is very telling.
We need better quality food, much more physical activity and a far less chemicals in our everyday lives but shaming fat people is so much more idealistic than the fat acceptance everybody dunks on. The material reality is so much more grim when people are going to just regain weight again.
It is remarkably easy to regain weight. 90 percent of people who lose weight end up regaining most of it back. It really is a struggle. You're absolutely right about the need for quality of food
Would even go so for to say a lot of the “treats” as hexbear often put them should probably be banned from production and just be something home made. At least effort is involved then to make stuff at home and with won’t be engineered with the sweetness bite point that makes easier large quantities of ultra processed foods.
Majority of people regain significant weight after losing it.
The majority of people also don't make meaningful dietary changes. They just eat the same things but less for 2-3 months and act surprised when going back to the old lifestyle results in weight gain. I've lost a significant amount of weight and have kept it off. It was very easy to lose the weight if you avoided ultra-processed stuff but maintaining while still occasionally eating that shit is nearly impossible.
Childhood obesity is abuse. Ultra-processed food should be illegal or severely regulated, institutional changes should make a good diet and exercise easier. But the fat acceptance movement is not our ally in this. Anymore than drunk driving acceptance or smoking acceptance should be.
I did say that we should ban that shit being mass produced.
While not calling for an “alliance” with the fat acceptance “movement” from which I can tell is a long gone movement in the 70s and some instagram accounts. It mostly exists in the imagination of chuds.
If telling them getting off the junk was going to work it would have worked. Same with smokers. You have to deal with all people as they are. Unique and complex neurological train wrecks that will sniff paint cants and chew lead paint if there was nothing better is available to temporarily escape the human condition. Change the environment as much as possible but people are going to find ways to fuck themselves up and socialism will just need to scale with it.
Child obesity is a a horrible byproduct of the collapse of social reproduction and advertising that affects the poorest and minorities first. Just calling it abuse is dangerous when we need real solutions like reduced working hours, healthy communal meals, sports programs for all.
I always think about how obesity creates a negative chain reaction in health outcomes, and then I think about how America's healthcare system is nothing but a network of negative chain reactions. It doesn't take much political theory to understand it's unsustainable.
The thing I find must upsetting about obesity in America is that it's a considered a failure on the Indvidual (like everything is) and because of that they don't deserve help. The popular response and institutional response to obesity is literally just "Go on a diet Fat-ass!". That's it. It's an iron-clad thought-terminating cliche . They're fat, they're fat because they ate too much, it's their problem, go the gym loser. I don't need to empathize with them at all because they did it to themselves. Boom! Done!
You don't have to do any more investigation or thought on why a nation-wide issue exists. It's their fault because they are bad people. Of course, the same applies to just about every major public social issue in America. Especially Poverty and Addiction. It's the same logic chain for people. It's a "you" problem, and it won't happen to them because "I'm special, I'm built different, I'm uniquely blessed to overcome the hardships of my fellow man" (NOTE: You are in fact not built different.)
It's so stupid that Amerikkka cannot even parse the idea of public health. It's truly one of the most vile morally bankrupt nations in history.
Exactly dude! It's horrible and really just reduces a person to math and that's the most dehumanizing thing ever. I hate the word "just". "'Just' go on a diet", "'Just' get a better", "'Just' do X", "'Just' stop doing Y". I hate it so much. It's so reductive and erases all the friction that comes along with being an existing person. I hate that shit bro.
What drives me bananas is that instead of trying to make food healthier they are all up in arms over the high price of ozempic.
It takes a drug to keep people from being fat while eating the same garbage for any real attention to be paid to insanely overpriced drugs. Thats such an american thing.
Obesity will probably be the biggest crisis of the future. We're watching the equivalent of 40% of a generation taking up smoking a pack a day.
I do have hope that Gen Z will be a better but even my formerly fit friends are starting to look a bit chubby after college and they're not slowing down.
I am fully convinced that porky wants us to be obese.
First, car dependent suburbs/rural communities are the new working class communities and urban areas are the new gated communities the rich are enjoying all to themselves. This significantly reduces how much people will simply be moving.
Next comes actually healthy food being reserved for the privileged. Us disgusting have-nots will eat the proleslop but also be told how disgusting we are for not choosing to be rich to enjoy a decadent apple over corn syrup.
Finally, the few people lucky enough to be employed will simply have too many responsibilities to make the time to exercise at the gym. If porky can be coaxed into hiring, then the lowly poors who work 2-3 full time jobs will also be far too busy to worry about that silly “exercise” stuff.
This will be another excellent mass disabling event to further guarantee no revolution occurs. And it has the added bonus of being social murder to us lowly poors to decrease the surplus population.
Thanks for taking one for the team as always, poors! I hope you understand it’s for the economy!