A CDC survey suggests America’s obesity rate may be falling.
Key Takeaways
- Recent data shows a slight decline in US obesity rates, but experts caution it’s too early to declare a turning point in the obesity epidemic.
- GLP-1 agonists show promise in combating obesity as trials demonstrate the drugs help people lose 10–20% of their body weight and reduce their risk of weight-related health problems.
- However, the high cost and limited insurance coverage of GLP-1 agonists present significant barriers to widespread adoption, and other preventative initiatives would need to be adopted to keep obesity trends declining.
Ozempic/GLP-1and fast food being way more expensive than it used to be, even if you give them your location and contacts by installing their app, are probably major factors.
Fatty, fatty 2X4, can’t fit through the kitchen door…
That and a similar gems used to be chanted at the big kids when I was young and being big was an abnormal state.
I’ve mentioned before to my kids that it almost seems antiquated that a ‘quarter pounder’ used to be the big burger.
I’m 6’3" and float around in the 230-240 space and try to stay no bigger than that. Back when the Simpsons first started that was considered comically obese. Now it’s just ‘dad bod’.
So much of it is an overcorrection in the name of not hurting the feelings of fat people to the point where now not only have we stopped outwardly shaming them but we’ve started taking big/curvy as being natural and all-american.
As a kid who grew up fat, the taunting didn’t help at all.
So did one of my daughters. It may not have been helpful in itself but think of t as a reflection of the prevailing attitudes. That being overweight is unhealthy and should be remedied. People go to great lengths today to justify and even glamorize being obese and it’s frustrating as can be.
I think the problem is that so much of our self-worth is wrapped up in being physically attractive. People want to feel desirable, and feeling ugly or unwanted is a killer on your self esteem. It also disproportionately affects women, as a man’s value isn’t necessarily tied to his physical beauty.
If we treated obesity as a health problem, and not a beauty defect, then it would be like heart disease or eyesight. You have a daughter, so you’re probably old enough to remember when wearing glasses was considered ugly and unattractive. People would rather walk around unable to see than put on their spectacles, and contact lenses became a must-have fashion accessory.
If not for the shared social trauma of fat-shaming, there would be no need for the overcorrection. People come in all shapes and sizes, and health is a relative term. Helping people get healthy is an act of medical care, not social control. It should be treated like any other condition, without judgement or stigma.
I’m going to agree with most everything here, though guys have their own critiques to deal with. Short, bald, and pudgy or scrawny muscles take a fair bit of confidence to overcome. Some compensate in more or less healthy ways depending on their own persona.
The way we deal with it as a society is a tougher question. Kids don’t deal in nuance so well so trying to frame it as a health thing is hard to do without perpetuating old stereotypes. Telling them that it’s wrong to bully someone but that being sedentary and out of shape is not good at the same time takes a lot of balancing. With the current culture of body positivity and health-at-every-size it can leave people scared to suggest that someone take up some sports or eat healthy for fear of being labeled as fat phobic.
Somewhat ironic additional note, I just recently joined the ranks of the spectacled. Not delayed out of vanity but out of lack of need up until now, but yes I do remember the era of 4-eyes being a thing.
That’s fair, but short and bald are not health issues. And kids should be encouraged to exercise regardless of their size. A skinny kid who plays video games all day isn’t living a healthy lifestyle, either. Health at every size is about setting attainable standards. The overweight kids can’t climb the rope or fit into a bikini. As a society, we need to encourage healthy diet and exercise, not body shape and appearance. Kids understand that, because they haven’t learned to equate sex appeal and self-value yet. It’s the adults that have a hard time with it. That association is learned, and we’re all better off if we don’t learn it.
Make them lose weight by raising food prices lol
The high cost of food is one of the causes of the obesity epidemic. Fresh food is expensive, and cheap food is full of sugar and salt because they are preservatives. Food processing and mass production creates cheap, unhealthy, addictive food.
$500 for a box of cereal.
Talking about the price of eggs like these motherfuckers should be eating all these eggs
Diet eggs
We kinda do the opposite already, via subsidies https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7690710/
There’s at least two ads an hour for low cost ozempic and other inhibitors, and enough Americans are lazy and somehow rich enough to take it that it lowers the obesity rate. This doesn’t make anyone healthier.
I visited there last year. Holy shit you guys are fucking fat.
Nothing going on with inflation or the economy has stopped you guys from eating
You haven’t thought this comment through and it shows. Inflation raises the cost of healthy food and therefore healthy diet. Same with other economic factors. There’s whole avenues of study dedicated to this which is why so many other countries have banned certain food additives that are used in American food stuffs. Companies are literally poisoning Americans to make more profit and making the healthy stuff so expensive that the average consumer (lots of whom are already food insecure) can’t afford to buy healthy food so they buy what junk is available cheaply.
I understand that you meant that the poor economy doesn’t seem to have stopped us from stuffing ourselves but like I said, you didn’t think your comment through.
I see where youre going with that but oats and beans are still cheap. There’s other options besides wagyu steak and crown rib. People eat shit food because 4 million years of evolution taught us to eat shit food when it was available. The struggle involves cost but that’s too easy a scapegoat. Lentils, beans, rice, potatoes, salad greens, etc… all cheap. Dont be a fat apologist.
Dont forget, inflation is happening in Japan too. But they haven’t gone jumbo because they tend to eat healthier.
I visited there last year
Dude, don’t tell us how food availability works and is affected by socioeconomic strata in our own country when you don’t live here and clearly aren’t a specialist on the topic. If you want to actually learn something about the dynamic, look up “food deserts”.
I lived there for 40 years and Im a nutritionist
Chris Christie would like a word with you.
Chris Christie can suck my whole asshole.
Forget it dude. We Americans will bend over backwards to tell you we can’t help being fat.
What I’ve noticed since the 80s is that the level of obesity considered “acceptable” in society has gone up dramatically. “I’m not that fat! Look at the guy over there!” Rinse and repeat.
I can go to Walmart, right now, and see people we would have gawked at in the 80s, even 90s. Not like we wished to be rude, seeing people that huge would have caught us off guard.
It’s troubling. I’ve seen the same. We used to see ‘a few extra pounds’. In school there were few if any fat kids, and those few who had an extra pound or two would be simply “husky”.
Now in walmart every 5th person is morbidly obese; the size of a double door refrigerator. The argument breaks down that they “simply can’t afford better food”. What’s worse is the reverse backlash: the admonition that “real women have curves.” In other words, people who choose to eat right and exercise aren’t real. They’re malnourished waifs that should be ostracized. I’ve seen a good bit of fat shaming in my time but it doesn’t hold a candle to thin shaming.thin shaming
Been skinny my whole life, jesus, I get that.
Dated a woman that had kidney issues, dialysis 3 times a week, anorexic kinda skinny. Complete strangers would walk up to her to suggest she eat more, try to fix her. Fuck me. (Turned out to be a pretty hateful woman, got herself a new kidney, hope she’s better.)
Talking to a close friend about our mutual friend. They were both 20 or so and I said something about the guy being fat as hell.
“Nah! He’s pudgy, but he’s not really fat!”
“Dude. Aside from the jocks, he would have been the fattest kid in my class ('89) of 400.”
His jaw dropped, didn’t know what to say. This man is about 5’7" and 250, easy.
And god forbid we talk about the environmental impact. Nope, not talking about that.
Inflation and economic woes are just a couple of the things we eat.
no. line must go up
I dunno. I think if I really put my mind to it and gave it my all. I could be fatter.
We have in no way begun to peak
Oh I can get fatter
Trumps degeneracy just took over so you can expect more McDonald’s advertisements from the White House
It will get worse
