Summary
A new Lancet study reveals nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, a sharp rise from just over half in 1990.
Obesity among adults doubled to over 40%, while rates among girls and women aged 15–24 nearly tripled to 29%.
The study highlights significant health risks, including diabetes, heart disease, and shortened life expectancy, alongside projected medical costs of up to $9.1 trillion over the next decade.
Experts stress obesity’s complex causes—genetic, environmental, and social—and call for structural reforms like food subsidies, taxes on sugary drinks, and expanded treatment access.
The shitty US labor laws (piss poor working conditions) are one of many problems associated with obesity.
When I bring my rice and veggy curry to lunch I become a spectacle for everyone. Because they are all either ordering fast food, not eating, or just eating junk and snack food. This is a huge problem, why am I spectacle for doing something so basic?
There are actually microaggressions from people to me just because I eat healthy.
People hate being reminded that the conveniences they enjoy are unhealthy/unethical/etc. All it takes is somebody else choosing differently to trigger defensiveness and denialism. Rather than making changes to their own life they choose to ridicule those who are making better decisions.
Go Vegan :)
Already have :)
Hella righteous brother 😎👉👉
Some previous coworkers I had were blown away by a pear that I brought as part of my lunch. A pear!!!
edit: duh, not pair
I was really confused for a second thinking, “a pair of what” then I realized you meant pear!! Lol. English is fun
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Under-educated overweight people with guns. Everything’s gonna be alright.
I have noticed the general public is now very tolerant of sweet drinks. I know that is not the only problem. I was never allowed soda or coffee or sweet tea growing up, so don’t have much of a tolerance for them now. But when I try popular coffees (pumpkin spice this or vanilla chai that) or cocktails at most restaurants, I am surprised that people don’t send them back and ask for less sweetener.
As an infrequent treat, I can understand it. But if you are drinking that much sugar on a daily basis, it must seriously screw with your system. I am sure lots of people are drinking a huge amount of calories and don’t register how different that is from past generations.
I(M) am an actually healthy weight (I believe I’m almost exactly average for my height and build for a man in the 60s or 70s), but my brain has absolutely been hijacked by sugar, and I can tell. Even avoiding over sweetened stuff for months and months I will still get cravings and having something I know a European would find sickeningly sweet I find is very similar to how junkies describe a relapse.
Despite all of that, I refuse to give in. I enjoy the freedom having a relatively healthy body gives me. Makes finding a partner with a similar mindset and goals hard though. It’s worse than a Thanos snap, 3/4 of the population just gone.
Tell me about it. The discipline it takes to not consume something the general public has been consuming as the norm is a struggle sometimes, but tasting the flavors I otherwise wouldn’t notice from something not deathly sweetened is a plus. As well as better teeth. My parents also restricted sweet drinks to family trips and parties growing up, and I don’t think I can thank them enough.
I like the edge off my coffee but I just use stevia, which is fine if you don’t use a lot and get that tongue numbing sensation. Those novelty coffees are utterly disgustingly sweet, and its all sugar. I can’t imagine drinking them, but I guess if everything you eat and drink is sweet, you wouldn’t notice it.
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%.
Yup. I was talking to a guy whose doctor told him that he needed to lose weight. He didn’t look big - he’s tall, but apparently his bmi was 30.
I’ve always had a scale and I’ve always used it. My weight now is less than my weight in hs. I was 130.
Yeah right now I weigh 170, I’m in pretty good shape (would be in better shape if I didn’t injure my foot and could start running again). But for me 180 is overweight? Even if that’s just fat that means my muscles become less visible. Hell it feels like my thighs are bigger now after getting in shape that when I was 180. And I started to look really skinny when I got down to 165.
I’m sure people would keep calling me skinny at 180. What we need are easier ways to measure body fat percentage. Because it is true that holding onto lots of fat for a long time is what’s bad for you.
The easiest way to check on body fat percentage right now is just to take weekly pictures of yourself in your underwear. You can see the muscle vs fat pretty well.
Don’t worry congress is going to make Obese 50% body fat in response to the crisis…
My family survived a famine, 80% of them died in the Holodomor.
I’ve got literal famine resistance genes.
I now live in the United States with access to delivery food and extra cheese pepperoni pizza.
Checkmate natural selection 👉😎👉
Is that better or worse?
congrats, you’re the pinnacle of western society
I wonder how recent semaglutide (ozempic, wegovy, etc) will affect this. It’s just come into mainstream recently and it seems like it actually does have positive outcomes for weight loss and addiction. When availability increases and eventual price comes down with patent expiration in the next decade we might see a huge change in this data.
In 1990 half were overweight or obese? That’s the real news, I would have thought much lower.
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%.
Depressing, but having seen my Missouri friend eat in not surprised. I’m glad he’s taking ozempic now cause I swear the Midwestern diet it inherently an eating disorder. (Also thinking of a Texan friend who drinks coke like it’s water, oooof).
It’s called freedom, libtards. We want the freedom to order a gallon of soda with our king size fries without the government telling us how to eat or food producers how to make their food. And we certainly don’t want the government to work on our behalf to lower the cost of insulin. We want a free market to shop around for the best price.
I’ve been seeing these commercials about losing weight. They briefly show a 💉 needle and state, “with the same active ingredient as ozampic”. It’s sort of messed up. It’s funny (dark humor), right?
Those commercials are about to stop interesting enough. They were only able to be on market due to the main drugs being in a shortage, which allows special pharmacies (compounders) to make knock off versions without going through the whole process the main drug did and bypassing patents.
The main drugs are now no longer in shortage, so in a few months, these compounders will not be allowed to sell those drugs.
[Tinfoil hat time]Crazy how much money is involved.
I’m at least a quarter by myself hahahah…ha
