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The obesity rate in the U.S. is continuing to rise (slowly, off the couch):
The new measure of the nation's weight problem, released early Friday by statisticians from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, chronicles dramatic increases from the nation's obesity levels since the turn of the 21st century.
Adult obesity rates have climbed steadily from a rate of 30.5% in 1999-2000 to 39.8% in 2015-2016, the most recent period for which data were available. That represents a 30% increase. Childrens' rates of obesity have risen roughly 34% in the same period, from 13.9% in 1999-2000 to 18% in 2015-2016.
Seen against a more distant backdrop, the new figures show an even starker pattern of national weight-gain over a generation. In the period between 1976 and 1980, the same national survey found that roughly 15% of adults and just 5.5% of children qualified as obese. In the time that's elapsed since "Saturday Night Fever" was playing in movie theaters and Ronald Reagan won the presidency, rates of obesity in the United States have nearly tripled.
The new report, from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, measures obesity according to body mass index. This is a rough measure of fatness that takes a person's weight (measured in kilograms) and divides it by their height (measured in meters) squared. For adults, those with a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 are considered to have a "normal" weight. A BMI between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight, and anything above 30 is deemed obese. (You can calculate yours here.)
Obesity rates for children and teens are based on CDC growth charts that use a baseline period between 1963 and 1994. Those with a BMI above the 85th percentile are considered overweight, and those above the 95th percentile are considered obese.
70.7% of Americans are overweight or obese, according to the CDC's data for 2015-2016.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development expects the U.S. obesity rate to reach 47% in 2030.
Related: Obesity Surges to 13.6% in Ghana
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 17 2017, @02:16AM (40 children)
It occurs to me that we're utter shit at poverty if we're eating that well as a nation.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 17 2017, @02:32AM (19 children)
Sure, mate, there's plenty of belt to squeeze (so try squeezing it a bit more, just from curiosity, see what happens).
But this does not mean you are eating well, quite on the contrary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 17 2017, @03:08AM (18 children)
What eating well consists of changes every few years. What doesn't is that fat people are not starving people.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 17 2017, @03:38AM (16 children)
LOL, that's obvious.
Is your target "starving people" or "people that eat well"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 17 2017, @10:38AM (15 children)
My point is calling a nation whose poor can afford to walk around weighing 300lbs poverty makes a mockery of this [buzzkenya.com].
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 17 2017, @11:02AM (14 children)
And you would suggest to do... exactly what?
'Cause the 300lbs of poverty you mention is caused by the fact they can't afford anything else but "empty calories".
Have you tried to eat what they can afford on daily basis? I can tell you, high chances are eating that "food" for a week you'll end by ingesting more calories than necessary and you'll still feel hungry - that's what empty calories will do to almost anyone.
Add to this the consumerism culture [wikipedia.org] - in a world where the American Dream is dead (I doubt it was ever truly alive), the only affordable challenge is "man versus food"; what other "victory" the man can claim?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 17 2017, @11:41AM (7 children)
Yes. I've been as poor as Americans can get at more than one time in my life and I never had the gall to compare myself to people who were actually starving.
And if you think the American Dream is dead, it's because you never knew what it was in the first place. Hint: it isn't "I'll go do something a trained monkey can for eight hours a day and it'll magically make me middle class". It's always been about being able to rise to the limits of your abilities. It's also never been a guarantee of success, just the promise that success is possible.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 17 2017, @12:08PM (6 children)
Starving, no. I'll ask you again the questions you ignored: given that starvation and poverty are two different things, what's your suggestion for poverty? Because if you only have critics, we can stop rigt now, thisdiscussion is even more inconsequential than any of the other comments on S/N
Many US citizens are poor without starving.
Mmmm... possibility/probability...
1. true, Zuck stroke rich and it seems rich enough to stay so under most reasonable scenarios.
2. You had some problems lately in "staying comfortable" - so getting to success is no guarantee that one will be able to keep it that way - just ask the fly over country what globalization brought them.
3. Others aren't lucky enough to even reach a modest level of "success".
But, one on top of the other, the reason I said the American dream is dead: point2 - the banks will take care
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 17 2017, @12:24PM (5 children)
Changing the goal posts? Get a new playbook. This discussion was never about a solution to poverty.
Of course there are no guarantees. You want a guaranteed outcome you're talking the Russian Dream not the American Dream.
Luck has very little to do with anything. Only those of limited ability think it does.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 17 2017, @02:54PM (3 children)
but you changed the goal post by stating your moral superiority in not having compared yourself to an actual starving person, in your attempt to look better in light of what the question asked of you.
No one cares about your comparison. the question was about you, as an offshoot of the discussion.
it's ok to deflect but it's not an acceptable debate strategy.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 17 2017, @03:02PM (2 children)
I think you're reading a different conversation than we're having.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 17 2017, @03:26PM (1 child)
This right here, evasive when you have been caught in a corner. Who the hell would trust you with anything you sniveling excuse for a human???
You always sound so full of yourself but every time you're challenged you back down with a variety of attacks which are almost invariably projections.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 17 2017, @03:30PM
I see a great case of projection here. At least you're aware of the concept.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 17 2017, @09:00PM
I intended to be have the solution dimension from early on**.
You refused the topic by ignoring it; your right after all but, in my books, it doesn't sit well if you climb a high horse only to get prominence for yourself and refusing to use the high position in doing something or even only considering what could/need to be done.
Maybe you didn't intend to climb a high horse, but believe me it looks that way from where I'm staying (and I might not be alone)
---
**
Is your target "starving people" or "people that eat well"?
And you would suggest to do... exactly what?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 17 2017, @01:14PM (5 children)
I grew up in a culture of self-reliance, so the learned helplessness that produces this kind of obesity boggles my mind. I've lived most of my adult life in places where people have that helpless mentality, but it remains alien to me.
If I were that destitute, I'd pick up my fishing pole and head down to the water to catch dinner. I'd grow what I could in window boxes and forage in parks and adjacent undeveloped parcels. Even in NYC you can do that, and that's without even having a share in a community garden. I forage now to keep my hand in and to pass it down as a practice to my kids.
Being able to find/grow/catch your own food is a fundamental human skill. It's the bedrock of personal freedom, too, because without it you're always going to be a slave to someone or something else in order to live.
Now, if you know how to do those things and buy food at the grocery store for convenience, that's different, because it's a choice you're freely making, not one that's forced on you.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 17 2017, @03:11PM (1 child)
What gets me is it's a chosen slavery because the skills aren't difficult or expensive to acquire. The Internet or your local library are happy to educate you for free.
Now, I'll grant you that I've spent quite a lot of money on fishing gear but I also know that if there's an old person out near me with a cane pole, they're going to make me question whether the $350 I spent on one reel was worth it when they're catching more fish than me.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 17 2017, @04:32PM
And that's if you're playng fair. If you really want to catch fish as an actual food source, a weir or fish trap is easily constructable from available materials and will greatly increase your chances.
Same thing when it comes to birds. A person unafraid of social judgement could live off of pigeons forever.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 17 2017, @09:30PM (2 children)
<chuckle>
The subsurbian hunter gatherer/subsistence farmer, with two kids and a mortgaged house, working two jobs to barely stay afloat and eating junk food in her/his way from one job to the other.
Are you serious proposing subsistence farming in public parks for, say, all the homeless persons in California city, that city that denied its homeless people the use of 3 portaloos [soylentnews.org]? 'Cause they don't have windows to grow something in their "window boxes" (this is where the"mortgaged house" comes into the picture).
But you don't survive exclusively from foraging, do you? In fact, it's more like a hobby, right?
Do you believe you could do it at survival level?
Here's a story for your leisure time about one man in Sydney that sampled this for a year [abc.net.au].
Imagine what it would be like if only about 100 people will compete for the same foraging grounds before proposing this as a solution for the "poverty induced obesity" problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday October 18 2017, @12:11AM (1 child)
Try a little history [wikipedia.org] if you are certain it can't be done. Try a little research [youtube.com] if you're sure it can't be done. Ask TMB if it's possible to get your protein by catching fish. Ask anyone who hunts what they do with their kills.
You're scoffing because you don't do it or perhaps don't know anyone who does it. But many people do.
To answer your other question, foraging is a hobby for me here. I have never lived from it exclusively for extended periods of time. Growing up in the Rockies my cousins and i would go camping for a week with a day's worth of food and live on what we could forage, catch, and trap. It was fun for us. So i'm fairly confident i could do it for survival if i had to. That's without going all SERE school, too. Here in NYC the options would be less appetizing initially but they would be plentiful. There are millions of pigeons and millions of rats that would serve, and also a really big body of water full of fish nearby called the Atlantic ocean.
I do fish a lot in that ocean. I catch and eat sea robbins a lot. There's no limit and their meat tastes like catfish. New yorkers scorn them because it's a poor people fish. But the latinos, chinese, and russians are right with me.
In the summertime my garden keeps us in vegetables, and that's with only 20% of the yard. I could use more area and can the surplus for winter if i wanted to, the way my family did when i was a kid.
So your hypothetical two-job guy couldn't find the time to do all that, you suppose? I bet he still blows his entire sunday watching football and his evenings zoning out to netflix. If he chose to, he could instead use that time gardening, fishing, hunting, foraging. He could make his kids take up some of that burden instead of wasting time on social media. Other people in less pampered parts of the country do that and have always had to do that.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday October 18 2017, @01:26AM
First at all, I'm not scoffing at all. It just happens I did and do it and know the reality (including the limitations) of doing it
Yes, it can be done...
I grew in an East European country and I remember very well my grandparents doing it with manual tools and using buckets for watering. It is done even now [blogspot.com.au]... if you have all the time required to do it.
Yes, there will be plenty of time to rest and enjoy your life (if everything else is paid for or in your ownership), but if you want that plot to be your exclusive your substance source, that work will be your first priority - it take only 2-3 days to neglect your subsistence crop for it to fail during hot days and you'll be starving the next winter.
I'm having a veggie patch in my backyard. It is good as a supplement with fresh veggies (it's more than good, it's delicious), but it alone cannot feed an entire family exclusively on that.
Even more, it can't be done without cooperation/produce exchange - when the crop is ready, you'll have plenty of ... say... fresh tomatoes, which won't last past 2-3 weeks time; more than you can eat for a balanced diet.
I'm simply giving them away to neighbors - it was 15 kilos of cherry tomatoes last year; since the neighbours are not doing it (well, it's either the veggie patch or the swimming pool for the kids), I get nothing in return - a good thing I don't expect eggs and chooks from them for my living.
Last year I had 4 weeks of eating zucchinis to saturation and beyond - those two plants were producing like crazy - this year I didn't put any in, only the thought of eating zucchini again... (shudders)... it's too soon.
---
Add-on subsistence is possible if you can afford it, but for sure, exclusive subsistence cannot be done:
a. when running one or two jobs that is/are barely enough to pay the mortgage and utilities (not enough time); *or*
b. when you don't own your plot of land and don't have at least water to keep you garden living (e.g. being homeless)l; *or*
c. on a limited surface like you 200 sqm backyard veggie patch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 17 2017, @08:51AM
Starving may be the most obvious way to die from malnutrition, but it is by far not the only one.
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday October 17 2017, @02:43AM (13 children)
Poor people can be fat because cheap calories != good nutrition. Compare the calories per dollar of fresh vegetables vs. potato chips, cheeseburgers, pasta, etc.
A 1 lb box of spaghetti has about 1,600 calories in it, and you can get that for about 70 cents on sale. A 24 oz can of sauce has 300 calories and is about 80 cents. That's over 1,200 calories per dollar. But it couldn't be called healthy.
Frozen pizza is $2-3.50. 1500-1600 calories would be typical. Still not healthy (maybe better than the pasta?).
Cooked beans (from dry) + a turkey leg is a pretty healthy and cheap meal, but it does cost more and requires more stuff to cook with.
If you have someone working two jobs, they are going to have less time to cook a healthy meal. Eating out options will be limited by budget.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 17 2017, @02:57AM (2 children)
That's why I say tax the hell out of junk food and apply the revenue to reducing the price of veggies, fruits, etc.
Had a carrot, app!e and banana for lunch today. Imma good for poops!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by digitalaudiorock on Tuesday October 17 2017, @01:19PM (1 child)
....and maybe stop hemorrhaging our tax dollars subsidizing corn in order to make Coke and beef cheaper for McD's bottom line.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 17 2017, @02:57PM
yeah and maybe they can stop subsiding industries that they routinely support while cutting such funding to competing industries while stating true competition would require such markets to stand by themselves without support.
doesnt matter. put a guy in a suit and see how he changes once the lobbying starts.
(Score: 2) by Post-Nihilist on Tuesday October 17 2017, @04:13AM (5 children)
If you make your sauce from tomato paste, fresh tomatoes, semi lean freshly grinded meat (buy the cheapest cuts and use a meat grinder) and various herbs; pasta can be a healty meal but you talked about the red tinted sugary sauces with trace of and/or¹ meat so i disgress...
¹ and/or as in beef and or chicken and or porc and or lamb and or Soylent
Be like us, be different, be a nihilist!!!
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday October 17 2017, @04:18AM (4 children)
Would probably still need to add onions, eggplant, mushrooms, bell peppers, etc. to call that a balanced meal.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Post-Nihilist on Tuesday October 17 2017, @04:36AM (3 children)
I wish i could but I get severly depressed when i eat to many vegetables. I am wired for meat, my doctor does not believe that I eat so much meat cause i usually score around 45hdl and 110ldl.... maybe its all the fish i also eat . cause i eat fish (salmon, trouts, tuna or marlin) a minimum of 3 times a week
Be like us, be different, be a nihilist!!!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday October 17 2017, @04:44AM
Try a savory vegetable like okra. It's great fried, curried, in soups and gumbo, etc.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday October 17 2017, @05:49PM
That sounds more like a nightshade-family allergy than a problem with vegetables per se. Most of our veg are alliums (onion, garlic, etc), crucifers/brassicas (cabbage, kohlrabi, broccoli, brussels sprouts, mustard or collard green), or nightshades (tomatoes, eggplant). You may handle spinach better.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 17 2017, @05:58PM
I'd suggest regular monitoring of your health and as long as you're doing OK and enjoy it there's no point changing stuff. I'd recommend not eating so much of the high mercury fish like tuna and marlin though.
People are different. Some people can smoke and still live till 90+. Others get dangerously high cholesterol/blood pressure/etc just because of genetics.
Some people can be fat and healthy others not so. I remember a kid who was fat and had high blood pressure when he was 15 - whatever he's doing it's not working well for his body.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 17 2017, @01:25PM (3 children)
And yet there's all kinds of nutrition everywhere, free for the taking. If I was lacking vitamin C I could walk out my door and harvest sumac from the park to make tea (which we do anyway because it's delicious, somewhere between cranberries and cherries), or grab spruce needles to make tea. Or, I'd go out and collect ubiquitous dandelion greens, which are incredibly good for you [mercola.com]. The dopes in the People's Republic of Park Slope, Brooklyn, will actually go buy the stuff for $4/lb in the organic section of the supermarket but won't stoop to go to the park and pick it for free.
There's a million plants like dandelion, as well, that are everywhere and that most people take for weeds. Purslane, psyllium, burdock, arrowroot, etc.
There are many options for even the poorest person if he's willing to free himself from the idea he can only eat processed food.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday October 17 2017, @04:44PM (2 children)
Should they be living in the park instead?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 17 2017, @06:42PM
Were you replying to me or someone else?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 17 2017, @07:46PM
Oh, you were quoting yourself.
Working two jobs does not bar healthy eating. It costs more to eat fast food, or processed food. Healthy eating doesn't have to take long either if you know what a crockpot is or have the ability to cook big batches and freeze what you don't eat fresh.
It's not necessary to live in a park to go to one and forage for healthy edibles, if you can't afford to buy it in the store. If you live in a suburb or town it's even easier. Edible stuff is everywhere; it's just that people have been trained to see it as weeds by a food industry that wouldn't make as much money if people knew what most humans knew 100 years ago and even now still know around the world.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 17 2017, @03:16AM
lol
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 17 2017, @04:42AM
Granted, yet consider that bad foods are cheap foods.
Shelf-stable hydrogenized oils are quite inexpensive when compared to unprocessed natural fats that need preserving or refrigeration (and become worthless due to spoilage otherwise). Those cheap oils seem to be directly related to "systemic inflammation" in the human body. Much the same holds true for the shelf-stable cheap corn-and-grain foods that are comparatively inexpensive when looking at the price tag, but come with many hidden costs (including a lack of satiation - something a high-fat, moderate-protein, very-low-carb diet does not lack).
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday October 17 2017, @08:31AM (3 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 17 2017, @03:14PM (2 children)
Nah, I'm comparing "eating regularly" to not. Everyone wants to make it about "eating well" vs. "eating poorly" though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday October 17 2017, @09:23PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 17 2017, @10:19PM
Possibly. Or possibly you understood it just fine but are looking for a point to argue. There's no way for me or anyone else to tell.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.