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posted by martyb on Tuesday October 17 2017, @01:16AM   Printer-friendly
from the let-them-eat...-too-much-cake? dept.

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


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  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday October 17 2017, @04:26PM (6 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday October 17 2017, @04:26PM (#583524)

    That's never been true.

    I disagree; the people vote for him, so he's a strong reflection of the population.

    >so his actions and how he takes care of himself and eats are a strong reflection on the rest of us
    Complete bullshit.

    You don't have anything more intelligent to say to counter my assertion? I think it stands. The president is absolutely a reflection of the people who voted for him.

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  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 17 2017, @05:25PM (2 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday October 17 2017, @05:25PM (#583551) Homepage Journal

    The president is absolutely a reflection of the people who voted for him.

    People, in general, vote for the least bad option while holding their nose. You know this and you're still being an ass and claiming otherwise just so you can dehumanize anyone who doesn't think like you. This makes you a douchebag.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 17 2017, @08:58PM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 17 2017, @08:58PM (#583655) Journal

    I disagree; the people vote for him, so he's a strong reflection of the population.

    So his voters are all billionaires? His voters are all 70 years old or greater white males who happen to be heads of state of large countries? Do you yet see how silly your assertion is?

    Complete bullshit.

    You don't have anything more intelligent to say to counter my assertion? I think it stands. The president is absolutely a reflection of the people who voted for him.

    My rebuttal was more intelligent than your assertion. Let us recall that as usual, there are only a limited number of viable choices for US president and several hundred million people with very different views on what they want. It's stupid to demand a moral president under those circumstances.

    • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday October 17 2017, @09:51PM (1 child)

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday October 17 2017, @09:51PM (#583685)

      Let us recall that as usual, there are only a limited number of viable choices for US president

      There's over 310 million people in the US, and the terrible choices we had on both sides (Trump, Hillary, Cruz, etc.) were all chosen by the American people over the course of many elections, not only the general election and the many primaries before them, but long before that too as all those politicians (except Trump) were popularly elected to various positions many times before running for President. So the people we had to choose from weren't just random people, they were people the American people had chosen to lead them before, and therefore are representative of what we want in our leaders. It's not like these people just bought their way into office; they got to that stage over many years of successful political campaigning.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 17 2017, @11:12PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 17 2017, @11:12PM (#583716) Journal
        Get a fucking clue. You're just saying here that the system has been rigged for many decades. So why are you going through the pretense of claiming that somehow this rigged game reflects US morality?