Well, you may be right. I’m not going to try to divine cultural sentiment from 40 years ago or whatever. I just think the study collapsing a relatively stable category (people who are “overweight”) with people who are obese and morbidly obese kind of hides the news. Sure, it makes for a splashier headline “75%!!” But the increase in obesity and morbid obesity is actually more dramatic when the “overweight” category is taken out of the focus.

Actually 40 years ago a higher percentage of Americans were “overweight,” so it’s unlikely it would seem more obvious then vs now. The difference is that now many more people are obese, but being obese is fairly noticeable unlike being overweight.

The percentage of people who are in the just-above-normal category of “overweight” has remained very steady and within a narrow band over the years, i.e., it’s been consistently between roughly 31-34% for almost seven decades. It was 32.9% last year. That’s why in my comment I noted that the real concerning thing about the study isn’t really the amount of people who are overweight; it’s the amount of people who are obese and morbidly obese.

Daily. And that’s just the hats, not the signs, bumper stickers, shirts, etc. I live in a swing state. That said, over half the voters in the country voted for him, and as a group, they’re very visible in their support, so I would be surprised if you don’t see Trump paraphernalia in almost every area of the country, if you regularly go outside and are around people in places other than work. Big “if” on that last one given this is Lemmy. 😁

Yes, technically, they are. But it’s unlikely you would see someone with a bmi of 26 walk by you on the street and think “that guy is overweight.”

This guy has a BMI of 26. If he had clothes on, few people are going to assume he’s overweight, even though technically he is:

To be fair, I don’t think many of us would recognize someone who is a BMI of 26 as “overweight.” It technically is, but you’ve probably seen people regularly that are “technically” overweight but would never realize it. You yourself might be (and, statistically, are likely to be) overweight according to BMI and not realize it.

The really staggering thing is obesity. From 1960 until about 1992, it was between 15-20%. By 2000 it was 30%. These days it’s getting close to 45%.

Why is that the news? Using NHANES data for standardized numbers, in 1990 it was roughly 44% of Americans. That’s lower than 1980 (~47%), 1970 (~48%), and 1960 (~46%). Did you think Americans were unusually thin in 1990 or something?

The 1990s are actually when the numbers jump. By 2000, it’s 65%. 2010, it’s 68%. And in 2020 to the most recent yearly data (2023), its 74%.

Everything is word salad if you struggle with basic literacy.

I’ll block you, that will make things easier for both of us.

Why are you so defensive about someone discussing the topic you yourself brought up? Was this thread only supposed to be vague platitudes?

Well, first, you didn’t ask a question. You made statements that seemed divorced from the geopolitical and military reality of the EU, so I offered some clarity. And no one thinks Trump will arm Russia? I think perhaps you forget how fond of Putin he and much of the party taking power in the US is.

No one said the EU will need to buy American arms. What I said is, if Trump decides to stop arming Ukraine and demands they end the war, and the EU decides to compensate Ukraine for what is no longer being provided by the United States, it’s quite possible Trump will withdraw the US from NATO. He’s already looking for an excuse.

If you think you can build a military coalition with 70% of the spend suddenly stopping, by all means. What is more likely, as I said, is the withdrawal of the US from NATO would dramatically hamper its effective strength as a deterrent in the region. You would then need to rely on individual member states to attempt to deter or defend from Russian aggression.

The US has a unified, centralized military with a clear and consolidated command structure across all of its branches with a military spending allocation 4x greater than the entire EU combined. The EU is a somewhat collaborative collection of nations with widely variant defense policies. Because of that, the EU channels the majority of its defense strategy through NATO, within which the US plays an irrefutably dominant role. Many of its smaller members’ defense strategies, Estonia for instance, amount to “try to die slowly for two weeks until NATO arrives.” Without the US in NATO, nations near Russia like the aforementioned Estonia could be in serious danger.

The idea that the EU could unilaterally “roll over” Russia if the US leaves NATO is unlikely, and extremely unlikely if it causes the US to start providing military support to Russia. That goes to my final point, which is, if you think you’re right, go ahead and try, and we’ll see how it goes. Fortunately, the leaders of the member countries in NATO are generally not as ignorant as you are, so the likely outcome here is if Trump stops helping Ukraine and tells them to end the war, then Ukraine will end up ceding territory and the war will “end.”

To be clear, none of these things happening are what I would consider good or positive possibilities. You may not like it, and I certainly don’t, but the idea that the EU will just “go it alone” flies in the face of the political and military reality of the United States and the EU. If you give Trump an excuse to exit NATO, he absolutely will, and the EU will then have serious challenges ahead. The economic impact of attempting to replace even half of the military power that will disappear if the US withdraws would dramatically reshape the EU economy. And not for the better. And that’s not even going into what China would do with the EU if this kind of political and military realignment occurred.

To be blunt, even as a union, the EU is not a superpower, especially militarily. Its member-states are, obviously, even less so. Its strength is generally in the arena of so-called “soft power.” What I’m discussing here is hard power.

Rhetorical impact.

The problem isn’t simply the US not sending arms to Ukraine and the the EU compensating for it. Do you really want to get into a military technology pissing match with the United States? Because the problem you have is if the Trump begins sending arms to Russia in response to the EU “prolonging the war” by making up for the US no longer arming Ukraine, you’re going to realize just how weak the NATO military alliance actually is.

Oh, but what about the US’s NATO obligations, you might say. Well, Trump has long wanted to leave NATO. Trump’s team has already pointed out that there is executive authority over foreign policy, and they will argue Trump therefore has the authority to unilaterally withdraw from NATO. And it’s quite possible he will, especially if NATO countries align to defy his attempt to end the war by increasing the arms they send to Ukraine.

It’s important to note that without the United States, NATO’s collective defense capability would be crippled. The U.S. accounts for 68% of total NATO defense spending, providing the backbone of the alliance’s military power, advanced technology, and rapid response capabilities. This dominance means that European allies, even collectively, cannot match the U.S. in terms of strategic lift, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, or modern weapons systems, all of which are critical to NATO operations.

U.S. withdrawal would leave a power vacuum that Europe is neither financially nor militarily equipped to fill, effectively gutting NATO’s ability to deter or respond to threats. Without the U.S., NATO as a credible military alliance would collapse under its own weight, leaving its members exposed and vulnerable to external aggressors. If the EU is worried about Russia continuing to expand its territory through force, the best way to make that happen would be to piss off the United States. Trump wouldn’t even need to do anything except leave. If he’s also arming Russia, say good night.

The EU is in no position to dictate terms or defy the will of the US in terms of military priorities. If you want to do that, than you need all member countries to dramatically reorganize their federal budgets to significantly amplify military spending. Very few if any EU countries a) have the political will to do this b) have the economy to afford this, and c) have the means to actually accomplish this. If Trump says the war is over, there is very little the EU can realistically do about it without making their situation dramatically worse.

Sad to say, this is truly a geo-political “fuck around and find out” situation for the EU.

Yeah, that’s exactly what you said. He also said raw milk is dangerous to humans because pasteurized milk is safer for humans (??). I think he’s drunk or just very dumb. Either way, just ignore him.

What a crazy story lol. I’ve never heard of that story until now.

RFK is secretly a flu virus wearing a human suit.

Privileged college kids larping as radicals that will only protest in safe spaces and only protest against people that agree with them and/or aren’t a threat to them. It’s kind of like whatever the opposite of “fighting the power” is. I’m convinced that’s why there’s so much infighting on the college left: they’d rather hyperventilate about a minor transgression that fails the immaculate morality purity test for someone that 99% agrees with them in all other respects than actually take their politics to people who have real and serious disagreements with them.

Hint: they’re usually only a few blocks from college campus. You know, the area you and your friends never go? Where the poor people live? That you supposedly care about?

Not all are like this, obviously, but I regularly interact with “campus activists” in organizing circles, and it’s largely an exercise in self-obsessive circle jerking in my experience. It’s incredibly difficult to convince them to do something that might actually take them out of their comfort zone. They’d rather yell at each other, yell at other privileged, harmless college students that disagree with them, or protest college administrators. As though college administrations are some great fascist force.

They’re one level above high school principals, Olivia. Relax.

Interestingly, research shows a surprising trend related to this topic: young adults today, on the whole, are engaging in less sexual activity than any generation for which we have data. Yet, this shift isn’t equally distributed across genders—where young men (ages 18-25) once reported slightly higher rates of sexual activity than young women, the pattern has reversed. Now, young women report engaging in sex more frequently than their male counterparts, with the gender gap widening now to a degree that significantly favors women in this area.

The reasons for this shift are still under debate. Economic pressures, the influence of digital media, and evolving social norms are all posited as contributing factors. But the data does suggest (this is based on CDC and JAMA studies) that a smaller subset of men are experiencing a larger share of sexual activity, aligning with certain internet memes and narratives about “Chads” dominating the dating scene. Whether these cultural constructs, such as the “MRA” or “Chad” phenomenon, are reflective of or reactive to this social shift remains unclear. Nonetheless, they generally resonate with the timeline of the observed trends around sexual activity. I’ll be curious to see how the trends indirectly the future of dating and sexual relationships among young adults.

But, all that aside, if more women choose to opt out of traditional dating or sexual encounters with men, more power to women. Coincidentally, it could begin to narrow or at least slow the widening gender gap in this area. I am unsure if that would be good, bad, or neutral. In general, a healthy sex life seems to be an important dimension of the human experience. I would imagine the fact that the overall trends are going down is probably a negative for the psychology of a generation, but I guess we’ll see.

This age cohort also drinks less, has more eating disorders, smokes/vapes less, is more sleep deprived, parties less, is more risk-averse, has shorter attention spans, experiments with drugs less, is more (prescription) medicated, is more depressed, is more socially isolated, and is more anxious than previous generations at the same ages. Looking at research on Gen Z is pretty crazy. And it can be depressing sometimes, but it’s a particularly unique age cohort. Scholars widely acknowledge Gen Z as being markedly different than previous youth generations.

I’m simply responding to the article and the OP. I’ve already noted I’m largely ignorant on the topic/school. The article notes the discrimination is largely against the Scottish and the working-class – two separate categories they can but needn’t overlap – and OP’s comment mentioned it’s largely a problem of the English at Edinburgh.

My second comment was actually intended as a light-hearted joke in the vein of “always blame the English!” but I can see it really offended your sensibilities. Here’s hoping you recover soon!

Nah, not really. I would encourage the university to make some generalizations about class background and nationality and become more prejudiced against the wealthy and the English and create a mandate to serve more of their underprivileged countrymen and women.

I would never vote for the Green Party after watching two decades of their utter disregard for political calculus while being both supercilious and patronizing about it. If the party’s behavior wasn’t enough, their supporters are utterly obnoxious, self-congratulatory egotists.

I fully intend to support nearly any candidate running against a green party candidate at the local and regional level, and will happily make political donations to any organization running ads and/or mobilizing on-the-ground efforts against the green party. The green party has been one long abysmal failure after Nader/LaDuke.

They certainly don’t need my help to die, but I’ll help dig the grave anyway.

Because the person who said those things and to whom I’m responding is the “Trump voter” I specifically referenced? In case the fact that I’m directly responding to their comment and they’re the OP of this post didn’t make it clear enough for you.