Yea I am going to check that out after RC’s articles. Admittedly, I kind of don’t care about the issue much, not enough to learn about it and have an opinion I would share. It has just always struck me as strange people never seemed to mention age when talking obesity.
Agreed there. I just assign a pretty low probability that their claims are true, based on how often contaminant and nutritional claims tend to be way overblown. I am content to wait a while and see what comes out of people who are more interested in the domain than try to learn all about it myself, if that makes sense. I just don’t have the bandwidth.
Yea I agree that kids today do seem a bit more paunchy, and I expect they are the ones most susceptible to the sedentary entertainment issues. No longer allowed to walk or ride bikes to their friend’s house, etc.
Thanks for the heads up on the deaths source, I was wondering about that myself. My guess would be they were starting with CoD data and flagging things supposed to be obesity related like heart disease to get a number. That would be easiest.
I would also be really surprised to find a doctor writing “Fat as hell” on a death certificate, unless the guy had slept with his wife.
Age is probably a factor but honestly, just walking around and looking at people, experience strongly suggests that there are more, and a lot more at that, young fatties than there used to be.
Personally I don't care so much about whether obesity kills people. It's the aesthetics that trouble me. Streets full of fat people are a form of visual pollution. Like modern architecture, it just makes everyone a bit more miserable to be surrounded by ugliness.
BMI of course is dodgy. Mine is 31.2, so technically obese, but body fat (according to my electronic body fat scale, admittedly an imperfect measuring device) is currently 18.4%, whereas 25% body fat is the threshold for obesity and 21% is considered borderline. That's heavier than I'd like (I hit 15.2% last summer) but then again I spent the last several months bulking and concentrating on getting my lifts up (successfully, too; 245 bench, booyah). All that said, at a population level, I'm extremely skeptical that BMI has gone up due to guys making sick gains in the iron temple.
Yea I doubt that she is all of it, but probably a fair bit. I expect the youth obesity is largely due to far more sedentary social and entertainment options than before, although it is a little odd that the increase in total share is so steady since 1975; I would have expected an inflection point around the early 2000’s if eg FB and streaming were really important.
Funny about the aesthetics angle, I grew up in a poor rural area and never really noticed anything. Then when I came back from college the first year I remember thinking “wow, everyone seems really old ugly and fat!” Took me a minute to realize nothing had changed, I had just gotten used to being around a population of 90% upper middle class 18-22 year olds who focus on their looks. Home was normal :)
I do notice a bit of a trend away from dressing for one’s body type. It seems a lot of people think “just because I weigh 300 lbs doesn’t mean I don’t look good in tights and a tank top made for someone 1/3 my size!” Changing social pressures? Generalized acceptance or celebration of zero self awareness? Makes me want to binge watch What Not to Wear, but generally I don’t really care how people look and dress. Unless I feel like I am likely to catch some sort of skin condition if I bump into them going past in a store aisle...
Grats on the bench press milestone! I am pretty skeptical of the exercising too much angle too :) just seemed like something to check, since with the older system that got wobbly with taller people a population getting taller due to nutrition would skew the numbers. A population getting meatier at the fat end and the muscly end might do the same :)
I would feel better about the obesity epidemic story too if nutritionists and those types seemed to know anything about health, as opposed to the CDC style quackery. So much of the discussion seems to be “There’s an obesity epidemic! Quick let me sell you something!”
Perversion of all sorts is promoted and celebrated by leftists, and now, from looking at ads on TV, it seems that obesity is the latest target for promotion and celebration by those same people, all in the effort to destroy this country and remake it into a socialist Nirvana. Vote accordingly.
I really don't think this gets it. Just like studiea somehow show miniscule effects ("actually, there is no shoplifting epidemic in San Francisco") against all evidence of your senses, so also I just don't think the old kind of fatness explains the quantity of morbidly obese people you see, especially among the younger as John Carter mentioned.
With Middle East and Samoa, my bet would be the western diet, processed foods, for which I would bet various native and island people's are much worse adapted then even the westerners themselves.
Oh yea I am not saying ALL obesity increases are explained by it. What worries me is that I have never seen anyone attribute any of the increase is obesity to an aging population that dies from obesity driven heart disease less frequently.
That is a good point about morbidly obese. I am just looking at obese, over that BMI 30 line, and not at all how FAR past that line people might be. Of course the morbidly obese are not dying as much either, despite what the name implies.
I don’t want to throw out the more exotic theories of contaminants and all just yet, but it does seem like the more mundane theories have been under addressed. I think that many in academia and the diet and nutrition industries would like there to be an obesity epidemic for the same reason they don’t want it solvable by relatively simple steps people can take themselves.
Ahhh that’s interesting! Good to know... I’ve always been confused when I saw data sets that would have different “types” of a country, eg West Samoa and American Samoa, then have others that just have Samoa. I almost never do work that requires digging into those sorts of facts, but it is a good reminder that data often doesn’t conform the the divisions and categories one wants :)
The focus that Samoa has placed on 'healthier eating' probably means that you can no longer conclude that the diets of the people who live both places are similar. Unfortunately for the Samoans, their leaders seriously bought into the 'fat is bad for you' doctrine, so it is not clear that they have actually achieved 'healthier eating' rather than replacing probably-too-much-fat with definitely-too-much-fructose.
Yea I am going to check that out after RC’s articles. Admittedly, I kind of don’t care about the issue much, not enough to learn about it and have an opinion I would share. It has just always struck me as strange people never seemed to mention age when talking obesity.
Agreed there. I just assign a pretty low probability that their claims are true, based on how often contaminant and nutritional claims tend to be way overblown. I am content to wait a while and see what comes out of people who are more interested in the domain than try to learn all about it myself, if that makes sense. I just don’t have the bandwidth.
Yea I agree that kids today do seem a bit more paunchy, and I expect they are the ones most susceptible to the sedentary entertainment issues. No longer allowed to walk or ride bikes to their friend’s house, etc.
Thanks for the heads up on the deaths source, I was wondering about that myself. My guess would be they were starting with CoD data and flagging things supposed to be obesity related like heart disease to get a number. That would be easiest.
I would also be really surprised to find a doctor writing “Fat as hell” on a death certificate, unless the guy had slept with his wife.
Age is probably a factor but honestly, just walking around and looking at people, experience strongly suggests that there are more, and a lot more at that, young fatties than there used to be.
Personally I don't care so much about whether obesity kills people. It's the aesthetics that trouble me. Streets full of fat people are a form of visual pollution. Like modern architecture, it just makes everyone a bit more miserable to be surrounded by ugliness.
BMI of course is dodgy. Mine is 31.2, so technically obese, but body fat (according to my electronic body fat scale, admittedly an imperfect measuring device) is currently 18.4%, whereas 25% body fat is the threshold for obesity and 21% is considered borderline. That's heavier than I'd like (I hit 15.2% last summer) but then again I spent the last several months bulking and concentrating on getting my lifts up (successfully, too; 245 bench, booyah). All that said, at a population level, I'm extremely skeptical that BMI has gone up due to guys making sick gains in the iron temple.
Yea I doubt that she is all of it, but probably a fair bit. I expect the youth obesity is largely due to far more sedentary social and entertainment options than before, although it is a little odd that the increase in total share is so steady since 1975; I would have expected an inflection point around the early 2000’s if eg FB and streaming were really important.
Funny about the aesthetics angle, I grew up in a poor rural area and never really noticed anything. Then when I came back from college the first year I remember thinking “wow, everyone seems really old ugly and fat!” Took me a minute to realize nothing had changed, I had just gotten used to being around a population of 90% upper middle class 18-22 year olds who focus on their looks. Home was normal :)
I do notice a bit of a trend away from dressing for one’s body type. It seems a lot of people think “just because I weigh 300 lbs doesn’t mean I don’t look good in tights and a tank top made for someone 1/3 my size!” Changing social pressures? Generalized acceptance or celebration of zero self awareness? Makes me want to binge watch What Not to Wear, but generally I don’t really care how people look and dress. Unless I feel like I am likely to catch some sort of skin condition if I bump into them going past in a store aisle...
Grats on the bench press milestone! I am pretty skeptical of the exercising too much angle too :) just seemed like something to check, since with the older system that got wobbly with taller people a population getting taller due to nutrition would skew the numbers. A population getting meatier at the fat end and the muscly end might do the same :)
I would feel better about the obesity epidemic story too if nutritionists and those types seemed to know anything about health, as opposed to the CDC style quackery. So much of the discussion seems to be “There’s an obesity epidemic! Quick let me sell you something!”
The appropriate bro response here is, 245 kilos or pounds?
Ounces for me, kthx:)
The bro response to the response: 30 units higher than my bodyweight.
Perversion of all sorts is promoted and celebrated by leftists, and now, from looking at ads on TV, it seems that obesity is the latest target for promotion and celebration by those same people, all in the effort to destroy this country and remake it into a socialist Nirvana. Vote accordingly.
I really don't think this gets it. Just like studiea somehow show miniscule effects ("actually, there is no shoplifting epidemic in San Francisco") against all evidence of your senses, so also I just don't think the old kind of fatness explains the quantity of morbidly obese people you see, especially among the younger as John Carter mentioned.
With Middle East and Samoa, my bet would be the western diet, processed foods, for which I would bet various native and island people's are much worse adapted then even the westerners themselves.
Oh yea I am not saying ALL obesity increases are explained by it. What worries me is that I have never seen anyone attribute any of the increase is obesity to an aging population that dies from obesity driven heart disease less frequently.
That is a good point about morbidly obese. I am just looking at obese, over that BMI 30 line, and not at all how FAR past that line people might be. Of course the morbidly obese are not dying as much either, despite what the name implies.
I don’t want to throw out the more exotic theories of contaminants and all just yet, but it does seem like the more mundane theories have been under addressed. I think that many in academia and the diet and nutrition industries would like there to be an obesity epidemic for the same reason they don’t want it solvable by relatively simple steps people can take themselves.
Samoa, which used to be called Western Samoa is not the same thing as US Samoa. see: https://1samoana.com/20-most-asked-questions-about-samoa-answered-by-samoans/
Ahhh that’s interesting! Good to know... I’ve always been confused when I saw data sets that would have different “types” of a country, eg West Samoa and American Samoa, then have others that just have Samoa. I almost never do work that requires digging into those sorts of facts, but it is a good reminder that data often doesn’t conform the the divisions and categories one wants :)
The focus that Samoa has placed on 'healthier eating' probably means that you can no longer conclude that the diets of the people who live both places are similar. Unfortunately for the Samoans, their leaders seriously bought into the 'fat is bad for you' doctrine, so it is not clear that they have actually achieved 'healthier eating' rather than replacing probably-too-much-fat with definitely-too-much-fructose.