I'd agree. Honestly I always thought that trend was a bit suspect in terms of how "real" it was.
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America's Obesity Problem Is Getting Even Worse
- Thread starter Jadentheman
- Start date
I realise this thread is about the US but this is not just an American thing. In fact I seem to remember someone else overtaking them for obesity rates (maybe mexico?).
Obesity globally is on the rise not just in the US.
Obesity globally is on the rise not just in the US.
Incorporating walking into your daily life is different from going out for a walk.
Most American kids use to walk to school...
Fatty foods have nothing to do with anything.
American portions are out of fucking control.
Even at the grocery store, it's like how much fucking food do I even need?
Also one thing I noticed that's different from when I left America in the mid 00s to now, the portions for fast food somehow got even bigger. Like bigass thick burgers are the default. I haven't finished a single hamburger since I got here.
It makes no sense at all. But it makes a lot of sense when you look at how fucking fat everyone is.
Even at the grocery store, it's like how much fucking food do I even need?
Also one thing I noticed that's different from when I left America in the mid 00s to now, the portions for fast food somehow got even bigger. Like bigass thick burgers are the default. I haven't finished a single hamburger since I got here.
It makes no sense at all. But it makes a lot of sense when you look at how fucking fat everyone is.
My roommate recently moved from California to Missouri and he said to me "wow, there are a lot of fat people here."
American Exceptionalism at the brunch buffet.
As an obese person myself I don't think anything is going to change anytime soon. I know I'm sending myself to a very early grave with my diet but I only think about that (and all the other consequences of being fat) after I'm done eating. In the actual moment of eating I'm too focused on the food to care what happens. Fucked up (and disgusting) I know, but I'm just being honest. I'm not saying I'd rather die young and fat then live long and thin but that's basically the choice I make every day when I decide to stuff my face.
It's fine as long as you're sitting down. You only encounter problem once you have to move (or god forbid go up a set of stairs).
American Exceptionalism at the brunch buffet.
As an obese person myself I don't think anything is going to change anytime soon. I know I'm sending myself to a very early grave with my diet but I only think about that (and all the other consequences of being fat) after I'm done eating. In the actual moment of eating I'm too focused on the food to care what happens. Fucked up (and disgusting) I know, but I'm just being honest. I'm not saying I'd rather die young and fat then live long and thin but that's basically the choice I make every day when I decide to stuff my face.
It's fine as long as you're sitting down. You only encounter problem once you have to move (or god forbid go up a set of stairs).
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Exactly. I scanned through the posts, and virtually every single person who poo-poos BMI follows the same tired, unscientific, response:
1. Use of personal anecdote
2. Does not offer a valid alternative
This always happens during the usual BMI/obesity/overweight threads that recurs here and previously on NeoGAF, every 2-3 months. Virtually no one who's against BMI brings up a peer-reviewed published article to argue their point. Characteristics similar to anti-vaxxers and the flat-earth people.
Here's why BMI is a good indicator for obesity for epidemiologists, and whatever other measurement you people were thinking of isn't as good, if you were even thinking of an alternative:
Actually, I'm not going to tell you. Because Harvard already did my homework, and put it in simple English. Not the first time I've posted this link.
If I ever need to argue why BMI is a "good-enough" obesity indicator that is closely associated with a health-based measurement, this graph is a good enough one to post:
Here's the primary source. Y-axis Hazard Ratios are for all-cause age-standardized rate of death. Feel free to critique it.
Does that mean I think BMI is perfect? Of course not. Since all the posters who are using personal anecdotes probably don't know the basics of epidemiology or even how to use Pubmed, I'm going to have to do their homework as well. Here's probably the biggest critique against BMI within the last few years: In 2013 there was a big splash when multiple journals including JAMA published a meta-analysis that showed that overweight people (BMI 25-30) actually had better mortality rates than people with normal BMI (18.5-25). The real health badness only really started above BMI 35. A lot of discussion about that. My personal take? I think BMI 18.5-20 as a group is not as healthy has BMI 20-25, and maybe even compared to BMI 25-27.5. No evidence that I'm going to bother looking up to back up my claim, just a gut feeling.
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Wouldn't body fat % be a more accurate measurement of whether you're considered 'healthy, overweight, obese'?
I'm 177cm, my weight fluctuates between 84.7 to 85.3 That puts my BMI at 27; which would make me close to overweight according to the BMI chart. But if you actually look at my body shape, it's anything but. Body fat percentage measured by a DEXA scan is at 13%, no gut whatsoever, can fit into a tight shirt comfortably.
I'm 177cm, my weight fluctuates between 84.7 to 85.3 That puts my BMI at 27; which would make me close to overweight according to the BMI chart. But if you actually look at my body shape, it's anything but. Body fat percentage measured by a DEXA scan is at 13%, no gut whatsoever, can fit into a tight shirt comfortably.
People really can't help themselves but to use personal anecdote to argue against a scientifically-established measurement. It's almost like they're forced to.
When you figure out a way to measure body fat % as accurately and cost-effectively as BMI, let me know. You know something cheaper than a measuring stick and a weight scale? Let me know. I'll become a billionaire and retire early.
Exactly my situation. I'm 5'11 and currently fluctuate between 185 and 190lbs of mostly muscle mass with little fat percentage due to doing full body workouts 5 days a week and am considered overweight by BMI. No way in hell anyone with eyes who've seen me would consider me anywhere near overweight.
Waist size is a pretty good predictor of health. Maybe more so than BMI.
So how are the prices say in your avg supermarket for beans, lentil, veggies (frozen or fresh), chicken and fish? You go a loooong way with those.
Are those ingredients out of reach for the poor?
Are those ingredients out of reach for the poor?
I reckon height/waist index is a better method to measure obesity.
They are not really reliable (bia scales I mean), but they are consistent, so it can be used to asses progress, just dont go saying you are X% bodyfat because that wont be probably true.
I love how this forum is suddenlly full of endocrinologost who know the advantages and disadvantages of the BMI.
It's true the BMI isn't that good for some extreme cases, but that's what they are, extreme cases.
And it's true metabolism and certain diseases can play an important role.
But having "wide bones" or a thyroid condition isn't the cause for being morbidly obese 99% of the cases.
It's true the BMI isn't that good for some extreme cases, but that's what they are, extreme cases.
And it's true metabolism and certain diseases can play an important role.
But having "wide bones" or a thyroid condition isn't the cause for being morbidly obese 99% of the cases.
This is a great post.
Yeah, as an european I find shocking too the consumption of candy as an adult the americans make, I havent eat those things since 11 or something.
Honestly can't tell if you're serious. How can one live life this way?
Why do you care? It's obviously not meant as a scale for people who go to the gym 5 times a week.
It's like you're offended that someone who will never see you in the flesh may get the wrong impression by only knowing those two measurements!
That's because basically all of your food is engineered to make you craving more very shortly after eating. It's not hunger, it's appetite fueled by addictive substances.
It would take some serious willpower but if you only ate non-processed food for a while, mostly home-cooked meals made out of single ingredients, you can get over that hump in a few weeks or months and the craving for unhealthy food goes away.
Does not work on people with abdominal hernias.
Does not work on people with stomas/colostomies/poop bag.
Does not work during pregnancy.
There are no universal standardized cut-offs for waist sizes. What's normal for an American man may not be normal for a Japanese woman. Great, now gather all the tables for different ethnic groups.
Once you get above BMI 35, it becomes more difficult to measure the rotund waist in a reproducible way between examiners. At least with BMI, you still get a discrete number. With waist circumference, it's "oh fuck it. It's somewhere between 50 and 55 inches."
BMI works on all of them.
"But hockeypuck, what about paralyzed and kyphotic bed-bound people? You can't measure their heights."
True, but oftentimes you know their heights before they became paralyzed/bed-bound. Moreover, body fat % is the least of their worries. Preventing pressure ulcers will always be on the forefront of that group's health.
If researchers cared about waist circumference being more useful than BMI, then I would expect to see the number of published articles using that measurement to increase. Instead, it's been dropping since 2014. Use of BMI continues to climb. Again, if you have seen a peer-reviewed article that shows the merits of waist circumference over BMI, feel free to post it in this thread.
Not really reliable, compared to BMI. Where is the standardized area to pinch the skin? There isn't one.
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I live in the UK and currently on holiday Portugal. There are lots of people here from all over the world. British, French, German, Dutch, Irish and of course Portuguese. The brits on average are so much fatter than everyone else. We are heading in the exact same direction yet we have all kinds of initiatives to stop this from happening, traffic light systems for packaging, health campaigns like 5 a day, easy access to cheap and healthy food, education at schools, decent school meals in a lot of schools and more cooking shows on the TV than you can shake a stick at.
I personally believe the issue is sedentary lifestyle and people just being lazy/depressed. Although I don't agree with fat shaming but we've normalised obesity and going as far as I'm some cases as promoting it as a healthy body shape.
My family lives on a modest shopping bill. We spend around £70 on food. That will feed me my wife and 3 year old 3 meals a day for a week. Nothing is processed, except the occasional sausage, and all our meals are fresh and prepped and cooked under an hour. It's so bloody easy there is no excuse for it
I personally believe the issue is sedentary lifestyle and people just being lazy/depressed. Although I don't agree with fat shaming but we've normalised obesity and going as far as I'm some cases as promoting it as a healthy body shape.
My family lives on a modest shopping bill. We spend around £70 on food. That will feed me my wife and 3 year old 3 meals a day for a week. Nothing is processed, except the occasional sausage, and all our meals are fresh and prepped and cooked under an hour. It's so bloody easy there is no excuse for it
Skin calipers aren't accurate and measurements can change based on who is measuring you and how they are measuring. BMI is actually more consistent (according to that Harvard link).
The reflex to always blame personal responsibility is probably the number one reason this problem will never be solved. There absolutely needs to be pressure on the government to regulate and educate this shit away or this will never, ever get better.
Damn near 20% of children are obese by the time they're 10, and at that point you're basically asking people to have the motivation of a hardcore bodybuilder just to reach a normal weight, fighting against the calorie balance your body has been taught to maintain and the world of addictive chemicals and manipulative advertising you're bombarded with everywhere every day.
And there's probably more we have to do beyond policies specifically targeting food and education, but it's such an obvious first step to start helping the situation when the US basically does nothing about it.
Damn near 20% of children are obese by the time they're 10, and at that point you're basically asking people to have the motivation of a hardcore bodybuilder just to reach a normal weight, fighting against the calorie balance your body has been taught to maintain and the world of addictive chemicals and manipulative advertising you're bombarded with everywhere every day.
And there's probably more we have to do beyond policies specifically targeting food and education, but it's such an obvious first step to start helping the situation when the US basically does nothing about it.
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That'd be wildly different between items though and wouldn't be too realistic.
That could be a whole lot of one thing (M&Ms for instance) and a whole little of another thing (slice of chocolate cake). And for other foods (a cookie for instance), you might only be able to eat 1/2 the cookie before reaching that threshold, which nobody would really do.
I went to a restaurant with an endless salad bar recently. The person in front of me put a goddamn gallon of ranch dressing on their 5-10 small pieces of iceberg lettuce. It made me sick just looking at it.
I'm not sure I'm reading this graph right. Why does it seem to show that healthy adults who've never smoked have a worse hazard ratio? Shouldn't it be the other way around?
First link is an excellent study that is literally the first real argument in >400 posts to argue against BMI. Well done.
Second link studies waist circumference after adjusting for BMI. The authors do not argue that BMI should be replaced with waist circumference. They argue that waist circumference should be included in addition to BMI calculations in the clinical setting. Not sure why you included this link.
Third link has a sample size of about 80. Where is the follow-up study with hundreds, if not thousands, of people?
By the way, the authors of the first study measured the waist circumference using a different method than the authors of the second study. Did you pick that up? Now you know why clinicians hate using it.
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I see you don't have a clue about how gain/lose weight works.
I won't waste time explain that to you but your understandings are decades old and obsoletes.
It's not an in/out problem you can solve by having less in. It never works like that. Yes you can lose weight by having less in and burn calories with exercise, if your body allows that. But 9 times out of 10, it will just slow your metabolism and you'll lose nothing you really want to lose (in example losing muscles but not dad bod) if ever.
As my nutritionnist says: the solution lies in making the body burn fat it doesn't want to burn, it doesn't succeed to burn. Accessing that fat isn't always easy and varies person by person.
I am not amused at some of you, using only personal anecdotes and what you think is common sense, in order to shame people that suffers from some illness. Furthermore as the mechanism responsible in gaining is very misknown to this day.
But as I want to show i'm not trying to troll you or deny some evidence, i just checked the web and find the exact same explanation on google in mere minutes, and it's not tales from some asses, check it:
https://idmprogram.com/obesity-solving-the-two-compartment-problem/
Obesity in the majority of time is an illness, not a "you don't move and eat too much unhealthy food you fatty boy". And i think as long this mindset goes on, we won't solve the problem. I know for sure some old doctors tell the same thing as you and it is the real shame.
Go see a real nutritionnist or a young doctor, he'll explain things better than me.
Because smoking itself is related to weight changes and tends to screw up the curve. A 3 pack a day smoker may be rail thin. That's why the authors separated out that group. Don't try to compare between the two curves, only within it. BMI 22.5 is the benchmark within the curves. You're assuming because of the hazard ratio that a non-smoker at BMI 22.5 has the same mortality risk as that of a smoker at BMI 22.5, because both HR are 1. That's not necessarily the case. You know that's not the case.
Because smoking really screws up your mortality risk that much, it doesn't really matter as much what your BMI is. That's why the curves are separated out.
I'll let the authors explain it more clearly:
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Yeah, their measurement methods make a huge difference. If I go from the iliac crest, my waist is 27", but if I go from just above the navel like in study #2, it's 24.5". Using the method from study #1 could also vary wildly pre vs. post childbirth too. BMI definitely still seems the general best standard at the moment.
We need a anti-obesity campaign like the anti-smoking campaign. It's also amazing how people are still using the tired old "BMI is bad cuz bodybuilders" argument on a forum like this, people defending this stuff no matter what, it seems.
is the opposite true ? If I want to gain mass because I'm too skinny, do I just have to eat more ? I already have a healthy diet in terms of the quality/variety of my food, and I don't really exercise much, but I still walk like an hour a day. It's just that I don't eat enough
Yes. There are people that have difficulties to gain weight.
And you can have a very unhealthy lifestyle without gaining weight.
oh yeah I definitely know my lifestyle isn't the most healthy it could be, but for some reason I often don't feel the need to eat, or choose not to eat because I have to study or something. (I hope I'll manage to better myself when my studies end)
This is the first time I have ever thought of Homer as a slim person.Nobody posted this? For shame.
I feel like waist circumference + BMI is a pretty good indicator. Think waist should be below 35 for men.
Don't want to sound insensitive but this very much looks like classic addiction to me. As someone who has used quite some drugs in my lifetime what ticked me off was the 'I only think about what I'm doing after I had my hit'.
Biologically it makes sense for it to be an addiction but I'm not sure society is ready to see it in such a serious manner.
No, it doesn't.
This is exactly the nonsense that's becoming widespread and isn't true. A small deficit isn't going to slow your metabolism by any significant degree at all, and the average person's metabolism doesn't vary to a significant degree. Around 1% of your body weight is a good target for weekly weight loss, and depending on how big you are, that'll change how big of a deficit you can run. Someone who weighs 300 lbs will be able to get away with a much larger deficit than someone who weighs 200 lbs.
To keep it simple, anywhere from a 500-1000 calorie deficit is fine for most people if they can't be bothered to work out their TDEE by tracking their calories and weight on a daily basis. And hormonal changes, which will happen with an extended period of weight loss, can be stabilized within a couple weeks of eating at your maintenance. If you want to minimize muscle loss, which will happen anytime you're trying to lose weight, you just need to add in resistance training.
There's no magical method to account for different body types or whatever bullshit people try to use. Your body is going to burn a mixture of fat and muscle on a deficit, and adding some resistance training while keeping your deficit to target 1% of your body weight to lose a week, will ensure it burns mostly fat and makes you look good at the end of your weight loss rather than skinny fat. It's really that simple for the vast majority of people.
Your nutritionist is terrible.
Getting rid of that craving is like having a veil lifted from your eyes. You can think so much more clearly.