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.
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.
Makes your breath smell bad. I noticed this as a teenager and never drank sodas since.
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’m the opposite. I wad told sugar was poison, so I avoided it as a kid. But now as an adult I love getting a sugary pop or whatever. My sweet tooth has definitely come in late
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.
congrats, you’re the pinnacle of western society
Is that better or worse?
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 👉😎👉
So your only diet options are… starvation? Hehe
i love personal anecdotes where someone makes sure to call everyone but them stupid and fat. eating proper meals takes time and money, which a great many people do not have, and large portions of the population do not have even live in areas with fresh food. ever heard of a food desert?
also the BMI system is based entirely on white Irish men of a specific height who lived like a hundred years ago.
also also, being ‘fat’ does not always mean you’re unhealthy, and being ‘skinny’ does not always make you healthy.
Every time I visit Germany, I eat and drink a ton. I’ll lose about 5 lbs that week just from the higher quality food and walking convenience.
At least the Germans have time to take care of themselves, but quite a bit of the food is processed too.
5 lbs is literally just a hydration and glycogen difference.
That’s interesting. Germans certainly aren’t known for their healthy food when you look at the prevalence of cured meats and things like currywurst.
contrary to conventional wisdom, quality of food isn’t really considered a primary instigator of the obesity epidemic. rather, environmental factors such as poverty, failures in education/access to diet information, and car-centric urbanization are proven to be much bigger factors in the ongoing health crisis.
in other words, america could be totally healthy eating the exact same food if we built society around people living healthy lives, but that is far from the primary goal for a country living under capital.
I slightly disagree.
If I suddenly started eating 15000 kcal of mostly sugar and fat each day, it would have a detrimental impact on my health. Regardless of my education or income.
So to me it seems like the effect is in reverse. If we changed society to make it easier for people to make healthier choices, then the general health would improve. But the actual improvement would come from calorie intake, food quality and activity levels.
But I absolutely agree that having limited access to healthy food, and living in a area where walking could be unsafe makes it incredibly hard to be healthy.
and here you discover the difference between primary and secondary causes, individual cases and epidemics lmao.
just because you can imagine an instance where food quality is a primary factor in an individual’s wellbeing doesn’t challenge the empirical evidence that overall the epidemic affecting massive swaths of people is borne primarily out of a context of low income, low education and urbanization.
Well, the smugness is impressive. I’ll have to give you that.
You specifically said: “in other words, america could be totally healthy eating the exact same food if we built society around people living healthy lives, but that is far from the primary goal for a country living under capital.”
I just disagree with this statement. I don’t think we could eat the exact same diet in a different society and expect food-related health issues to significantly improve.
So where on the list of causes would you place calorie intake, food quality and inactivity? Secondary? Tertiary? Completely unrelated?
me: in other words, america could be totally healthy eating the exact same food
you: I don’t think we could eat the exact same diet
notice the key difference in language. makes 100% of the difference. i choose my words with care.
So, I’m I to assume that you wanted to say that calories are more important than food quality?
Sure. I agree with that.
Regarding your careful choice of words. If you wanted to make a convoluted post in order to smugly debate some random person on the internet, then you have done an excellent job and I congratulate you sir.
If you are trying to actually communicate clearly then you have some improvements to make.
Don’t worry congress is going to make Obese 50% body fat in response to the crisis…
Can confirm. 3/4 of my body is fat while the rest of it is skinny AF.
We live at a time of artificial plenty and everyone’s stressed. It literally doesn’t have to be a bad thing, either. We don’t judge people who take on prestigious corporate jobs that will by nature make them more stressed and worn down. They get money, 75% of us get to eat tasty food and treats.
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%.
People were thinner in the 1930s. We should figure out what their secret was and copy it.
Oh, don’t worry. We are.
Private prisons stock has increased, so it looks like its part of the plan.
They still give processed foods like crisps and cookies, but the calorie intake provided is too low to support an obese diet. And cholera spreading through overcrowded, for-profit prisons should also encourage rapid weight loss.
Do they get scones and blackcurrant squash?
We don’t care about the fat fux
We? You and who else?
I mean, do you feel bad if someone is overweight and complains about their bad knees? Yes, obviousy
And I care that there’s a country full of very unhealthy people who will die unnecessarily early deaths because they have been raised to eat processed food and have been addicted to sugar since they were babies.
You know what the national emblem of this country should be? A big bowl of macaroni and cheese.
🤔
The shitty US labor laws (piss poor working conditions) are one of many problems associated with obesity.
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?
It’s sad on how much food is “wasted” because people eat way more than they need. But now you can eat like a pig and just get a shot to lose weight. As long as it’s not some bad big pharma vaccine and i can still eat as many nuggies as i want, fantastic.
GLP-1s work by making unhealthy food feel more sickening, causing people to eat and drink less
I lost a bunch of weight a couple years ago. The secret was counting calories. Eating out at lunch was usually twice as many calories as I was allowed. Everywhere I went it was this way. Personally, the portion sizes didn’t look huge.
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.
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.
Some previous coworkers I had were blown away by a pair that I brought as part of my lunch. A pair!!!
I can’t tell if you’re kidding, but the homonym you’re looking for is pear.
I was really confused for a second thinking, “a pair of what” then I realized you meant pear!! Lol. English is fun
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.
Business school calls it Escalation of Commitment.
I call it Bucket o’ Crabs. In this case the bucket comes with another bucket full of melted butter.
Go Vegan :)
The reason people don’t like vegans is because they interject themselves into conversations that are only tangential to the topic.
Diet
Health
Respond to comment about making healthy/ethical decisions and people’s defensiveness about it.
Yeah that seems ‘tangentially’ related. You sound like the guy the commenter was describing.
Doesnt matter if you dislike vegans. Stop abusing animals 💁🏼♂️
there is no reason to believe this person abuses animals. don’t make spurious accusations.
Already have :)
Hella righteous brother 😎👉👉
Yeah, it has nothing to do with stinking up the entire building.
