It seems public healthcare is not feasible in the United States while the majority of Americans are overweight and a third are obese. It causes too many expensive health problems that are preventable by maintaining a healthy weight. Perhaps the government should simply pay people to keep their BMI under 25.
Is anyone <i>seriously</i> engaging with the question of what to do about obesity from a public health standpoint instead of riding their dietary/urban planning/economic hobby horse or coming up with yet another vacuous PR campaign to promote "healthy choices"? As far as I've been able to find, there are <i>zero</i> examples of countries with an obesity epidemic that have managed to even halt it, let alone reverse it. Every major explanation of the epidemic I've seen fails to actually fit the data, often blatantly so (e.g. blaming things that spiked well before the epidemic in a given population, or trends that flattened or reversed decades ago while obesity continues to rise).<p>It feels like we're either not even trying, or are ruinously confused about what we're up against.
As a very open-minded, progressive, pro gender revolution, LGBTQ individual, I just can’t wrap my head around the fat pride movements. News like this reinforce my opinion that they are plainly dangerous to public health.
One thing is to be accepting of a non-standard body, even including some degrees of extra weight, but justifying obesity is very different.
Why are so many people obese?<p>Do that many people just not know better? I know some people really have no idea how calories work but I see obese smart people who should know better.<p>Do people just not care? I understand some people not caring, like computer scientists or “manly” men. But even they should understand that obesity is really bad for health and QOL. They don’t have to become normal weight either: being overweight doesn’t have the negative physical and mental health effects, but they are obese to the point where it does affect those things.<p>Are they hungry? I get this part. I’ve experienced real hunger and it’s not the “just wait until dinner” kind. I could never maintain a normal weight if I had to endure constant hunger and the effects associated with it (low energy, brain fog, mood dysregulation - these are very real things people experience when not eating enough, and which fat people experience even when eating enough when they have hormonal issues).<p>Except, obese people also eat junk food which makes you <i>more</i> hungry. If it was hunger I would expect to see more people eating large plates of protein and vegetables, but it seems like even with CICO most people just don’t get fat on protein and vegetables. Do whole foods just not satiate? Or do people not understand which foods make you feel full, which make you <i>satisfied</i>, and which make you satisfied <i>while tasting good</i> (skinless chicken breast and raw salads with no dressing are not good meals).<p>I don’t have anything against obese people. But supposedly over 40% of Americans are obese, and many are obese in other countries. This is very strange and honestly depressing. Maybe it’s because I live in communities where less people are obese (college towns and a suburban community in a very blue state), because indeed while I see obese people it seems like way less than 40%. Particularly depressing is <i>child</i> obesity, which is really strange because kids tend to have higher metabolisms and even skinny kids’ diets are really junky.<p>I think most people would really like to be not obese, and if those people could lose weight with low effort it would be a huge benefit to them and society. So it’s important to understand why so many people are obese. Because like I said, 40% are obese despite most knowing better, and a lot of people seem to be like “yeah”.
A bit of science: Prof. Richard Johnson - 'Nature Wants Us To Be Fat':<p><a href="https://youtu.be/gAjC_BWMElk" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/gAjC_BWMElk</a><p><a href="https://youtu.be/gl-Ugeau8mU" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/gl-Ugeau8mU</a><p><a href="https://youtu.be/UTDWAN1G-nk" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/UTDWAN1G-nk</a>
> evaluated the relative contribution of 8 modifiable risk factors—physical inactivity, current smoking, depression, low education, diabetes, midlife obesity, midlife hypertension, and hearing loss—to ADRD risk<p>How are depression and hearing loss <i>modifiable</i>? Is the implication that untreated depression or not using hearing aids is a dementia risk?
It's not the corn, it's the soy and other high PUFA oils that are added to everything.<p>But soy is a rotation crop for corn and instead of feeding it to animals it gets used in the human diet.
A (record?) 92% of Americans now have some form of health insurance (Biden tweeted this last week)<p>Yet our life expectancy continues to decline<p>Its obesity<p>No amount of healthcare access can save those determined to stay obese