I visit family in other states and I get comments like “I can’t believe you are so thin.” For context I am a healthy weight and I eat what I consider a reasonable diet. I sit and smile while I watch them drink soda and eat pure sugar and salt. I don’t care about your life choices but don’t act surprised by someone that’s a normal weight.
I like this trend of throwing other states into the ocean. For too long Alaska and Hawaii have been floating around out there on their own!
They made Rhode Island into an island, it’s perfect
How closely does this match a heatmap for poverty levels?
Junk food is cheap so there is a correlation. It isn’t a perfect match but it is close.
What is more interesting is looking at obesity by race.
Got it. So Colorado should be predominantly rich white people.
Oh hey wait look at that, 76% white and 10% immigrant labor. With a white poverty rate of only about 7.5% (1)
Colorado here. You nailed it. We got a lot of these unbearable “health is life” turds.
21% of the state is also of Hispanic or Latino descent and growing, but yeah, predominantly white.
Actually the white population for the US is one of the highest.
An obese poor person really is a paradox!
It’s far more expensive to eat in a way that would make you fat, so maybe not poverty, but (nutrition) education levels would be a better correlation?
While ingredients for healthy food are cheaper that processed ready to made or fast food, the time and energy to cook is an expensive luxury that no everyone have.
Check out this Folding Ideas video, about food, class and the cost of cooking https://youtube.com/watch?v=V-a9VDIbZCU
Class and the cost of cooking?
I could hop on Amazon right now, find you a $30 range and a $7 toaster oven at a flea market. You can bake anything that fits into it.
If you have a home, a sink and a power outlet, you can cook, and I know a ton of you have that before you have your next Little Caesars, and if you can’t cook, you’re in luck as learning new skills is entirely free sans the time.
You’re so close. Time is a luxury. Time. Poor people are working multiple jobs. Time. Time. Time.
the time and energy to cook is an expensive luxury that no everyone have.
I would reject that statement on the basis that preparing a decent meal does NOT have to be time or energy intensive.
For example, you can make overnight oats with about 10 to 15 seconds of effort. It would be filling, healthy, cheaper than packaged cereal, and can be done with something that most people already have in their home or apartment (a fridge).
And with a visit to the thrift shop, you can get a rice cooker for like $10. And make all kinds of dishes without any effort at all.
There are so many “hacks” to make cooking quick and easy, that I’d say it’s more effort to always feel shitty because of a poor diet.
Good luck eating “overnight oats” everyday on dirty plates in a dirty kitchen, cause looks you don’t think cleaning is part of the food preparation process.
Good luck eating “overnight oats” everyday on dirty plates in a dirty kitchen
Goddamn, where are you eating your meals, bro?
Cleanup is SUPER EASY.
I don’t understand what everyone is doing to make food prep and cleanup such a nightmare, but it really doesn’t have to be difficult, unless you make it difficult.
Sounds like you’re not the one who cook or clean in your home.
Yes, I do, along with the grocery shopping. For a family of 4.
Since the pandemic, we really had to tighten up on our grocery budget, so we learned where to save money on food while making food prep easier (so we aren’t relying on convenience foods).
As an example, we were spending something like $15 to $20 per week on non-dairy milk. So, we just make that at home for pennies at a time. Takes <10 minutes to make a week’s worth, then we reuse the glass jars. No waste, no running to the store, no filler ingredients.
We do also make use of an instant pot and bread machine. Low effort, but high-quality food that’s cheap.
Food prep (and cleanup) is a skill that I hope everyone can take at least some time to learn. It carries through to the rest of your life, and you’ll have better health as a result.
Don’t get me wrong, we definitely still buy convenience and packaged food, but they aren’t the meal. Even as snacks, these foods are far too expensive to have all the time.
I love to cook and always have. When I was working 2 jobs (and some additional freelance/part time) to keep a roof over our heads, there was zero chance I had the time, money, and energy to cook. Living in a food desert, I would have to spend gas money I didn’t have to go to a proper store to buy things and that would eat about 50 minutes more of my already-sleep-deprived day. Don’t even get me started on when I lived out of a car for a while. And I’m fortunate that I even had the car. Public transit was terrible where I lived at the time and basically useless unless you want to spend 3-4 hours a day commuting. There were no sidewalks and multi-lane roads with high speed limits. The social safety net is also in terrible shape, moreso today than back then.
“Only $10” also shows how out-of-touch you can be for the real situation that people have, particularly in areas of the rust belt and coal mining areas where the employers frequently left. I also worked in worker’s comp in healthcare IT and let me tell you that people with lifelong problems from the mines frequently get denied care as the mines fight just about everything, so there are people who have a really rough time and need more care for their families which is still more time and money in places with few jobs left to go around. These people also don’t have the resources to “just move”, either. This doesn’t even go into the opioid epidemic that also is an issue from overprescription in those areas and other confounding factors.
there was zero chance I had the time, money, and energy to cook.
Friend, I don’t know why so many people believe that simply feeding yourself require a tremendous amount of time, money, or energy.
You can make a week’s worth of food, with little more than a few minutes to dump the ingredients in a rice cooker, slow cooker, or pressure cooker. When times are tough, and money is tight, this would be the most ideal way to do things.
Do food deserts exist? For sure. I completely understand that not everyone has access to unlimited amounts of food.
But the reality is, over 90% of the American population live within 15 minutes of a Walmart (with three quarters being within 5 minutes from one), and that’s if they don’t already have more than one grocery store in their area. If they live further, Walmart offers free shipping or very low cost shipping. And that’s just Walmart. Pick whatever grocery chain or even Amazon, and there really is no such thing as a food desert.
Please don’t diminish someone’s ability to really improve their life with very little effort. The worst thing we can do is convince people that they are powerless, when in fact, they have way more control over their dietary choices than they think.
rice cooker, slow cooker, or pressure cooker.
I literally had none of these at the time I mentioned. I had I think two pots and a frying pan.
over 90% of the American population live within 15 minutes of a Walmart (with three quarters being within 5 minutes from one)
Citation? I sure didn’t.
if they don’t already have more than one grocery store in their area.
We had one and that was anywhere close. Again, remember gas money and travel time were issues for me. Like every cent of gas and food money.
Please don’t diminish someone’s ability to really improve their life with very little effort
But it’s fine for you to tell the working poor to basically ‘git gud’ and find money to spend on things, places to spend it, and time to do so? Particularly the ones without vehicles? The ones who deal in cash and don’t have debit or credit cards to order online?
there really is no such thing as a food desert.
Again, there are people who do not have bank accounts or cannot regularly access them to spend money online and most places these days aren’t going to do CoD. This is also just misinformation.
"The consensus established at the NIH workshop was that food insecurity and unhealthy neighborhood food environments contribute to diet-related chronic diseases that worsen health disparities. Addressing these challenges would help tackle nutrition security, a growing priority for the USDA and other federal agencies [83]. Several factors, including social determinants of health such as employment, housing, and education, severely limit access to affordable, nutritious food among various racial/ethnic minority and rural populations. " from the conclusion/summary of https://ajcn.nutrition.org/article/S0002-9165(23)66352-X/fulltext which also mentions food deserts elsewhere in the work.
The worst thing we can do is convince people that they are powerless
Of course they’re not powerless, but your “solutions” are blind to just how shit the situation is. I’m telling you this as a very annoyed person who lived it. You’re telling people to come up with time, means, and money out of nowhere. “It’s just $10” is insulting to some people who are choosing between food and medicine or heat or electricity. You are saying to empower yet victim-blaming by saying they’re not doing enough.
I’m going to try to cover this quick, since my intention was not to get into a back-and-forth argument. Everyone’s situation is different, but my point is that improvement doesn’t require as much effort as you might think.
I literally had none of these at the time I mentioned. I had I think two pots and a frying pan.
I get that. You have to start somewhere. If a visit to a thrift shop for an almost free rice cooker is too much, work with the pots!
Citation?
Forbes posted the 15-minute figure back in 2013.
Walmart’s official number from 2019 uses miles: “Not only do we employ over one million people in the United States, but 90 percent of Americans live within ten miles of a Walmart store.” (source)
There are variations of this stat, depending on the year, but they clearly show that accessibility isn’t an issue. Look at a map of obesity rates and Walmart locations, and you’d never be able to argue that it’s about access to the store. If anything, the easy access to Walmart, coupled with uninformed food choices, and it’s probably a driving factor of obesity!
And that’s just Walmart… consider other stores, and you’ve probably got 99% of the population within a very close distance.
We had one and that was anywhere close. Again, remember gas money and travel time were issues for me. Like every cent of gas and food money.
I understand that. I’m not sure how far back we’re talking, but this is a non-issue with free shipping being offered. Also, keeping in mind that almost all the population has access to at least 1 large grocery store within close proximity to where they live. The obesity map in the OP isn’t looking at outliers.
Again, there are people who do not have bank accounts or cannot regularly access them to spend money online and most places these days aren’t going to do CoD. This is also just misinformation.
But it’s fine for you to tell the working poor to basically ‘git gud’ and find money to spend on things, places to spend it, and time to do so? Particularly the ones without vehicles? The ones who deal in cash and don’t have debit or credit cards to order online?
Really, people are still eating food, and they still have to get food from somewhere. That’s not really up for debate.
The unbanked population is very small (<10%), while obesity affects the majority of the population. Grocery stores accept cash.
I’m suggesting that simple changes can have a big impact. Even buying food from the dollar store doesn’t have to be unhealthy.
I don’t drive to get to the grocery store. I ride my bike or walk. It’s completely doable with minimal effort.
I’ve also used pre-paid cards and cash to buy groceries, so I don’t accept the excuse that lack of a credit card or even a bank account is preventing someone from buying food staples.
You’re telling people to come up with time, means, and money out of nowhere.
Sigh… not out of nowhere. I’m submitting that by reallocating time, means, and money, you can get to a BETTER place, probably with less effort and by using less money!
The hardest part is starting. Once someone abandons the bad habits they’ve picked up through their childhood and adult life, their relationship with food can improve, and they can save their money and health in the process.
My suggestion to anyone is, start with what you have.
If you can, visit a local thrift shop or join a “free stuff” group, and invest a little in some time/money savers: an inexpensive rice cooker, a pressure cooker (even a stove-top version), a large pot, or a slow cooker.). These can be found free or very cheap, and they will last many years. All or any of those items can save time AND money.
Focus on inexpensive staples: rice, dry beans, oats. These can offer healthy calories, are filling, and can be cooked in large batches very easily and with minimal effort.
Save on produce when possible: buy frozen fruits/vegetables rather than fresh. You can eat 100% of what you get, and there’s no risk of them going bad if you don’t consume them quickly enough. Buy in season, and if you can only afford bananas, go with them. Replacing soft drinks with something like V8 would be a massive upgrade.
Learn how to make “one pot” recipes, and change them up using different spices or seasonings (these are inexpensive, and add variety to your dishes).
If possible, learn how to make your own bread, pasta, non-dairy milk, snacks, or treats. These can take more effort if doing it by hand (invest in an inexpensive bread maker, blender, etc., if your goal is to save time, too), but they can save a ton of money. My $100 bread maker paid for itself in several months, and we’ve been saving on bread, pizza dough, and tortillas ever since.
Assuming you aren’t poor (fun fact: the CDC suggests that income level does not correlate to obesity in men and has only some impact on women), invest in more time/money saving appliances. That way, you can expand on your meal types and make it much easier to replace worse food options.
Learn better eating habits. Really, this is probably the biggest barrier preventing people from losing weight.
Stop eating in front of the TV or when you’re distracted.
Learn how to refocus emotional eating into something more productive.
Make meal prep something the entire family can get involved in (i.e have your kids or spouse pick out recipes to try).
View food as a means for fuel and nutrition. This doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy it, or that you can’t “junk out” once in a while, but give food the appropriate time and place.
As best as you can, don’t keep junk food in the home. Replace them with healthier versions, if possible.
Always try to have healthy convenience foods available to you (ideally, stuff you’ve made!).
Portion control. Yes, eat out of a small bowl or weigh food based on the appropriate portion sizes. Use a bowl, plate, mug that brings you joy. My family has dedicated items for each family member, and we find that this makes eating more like a ritual rather than a mindless activity.
Track your calories. This is a big one. You won’t be able to lose weight unless you know what you’re eating. If you’re unknowingly adding 1000 excess calories to your diet each day, you’ll never succeed. Tracking calories also gives you come accountability.
Find the time to move. Walk, bike, use a standing desk… whatever gets you UP and moving your body will improve your health and help lower your weight.
I could go on for days, but I hope that my point has been made: there are so many small things that anyone can do to improve their diet (and health). Sometimes, just knowing that a better life is possible can motivate you to start.
Highly processed, high sugar foods are generally less expensive.
Highly processed, high sugar foods are generally less expensive.
It may seem that way, but I’d love to have some examples.
FWIW, I do the grocery shopping in the home, and find that highly processed foods, for the amount you get, is far more expensive than real food.
It’s always funny to me to watch single people who have been skinny their entire life try to coach the world on how to be like them.
There is an entire world outside of your little shell, very few people will fit in to the narrow view of the world you have and those that do don’t need your advice, they already look and eat like you.
There are myriad luxuries that contribute to your, apparently quite successful lifestyle. Had you actually encountered the hardships you claim to be able to resolve with some fucking oats, you’d be able to grasp the true depths of how idiotic the suggestion is.
I congratulate you on your success, but please shut up. The poors are in no further need of out of touch advice, they get plenty.
You assume that I’ve been both skinny and well off, so I can’t speak to the topic?
Well, you’re wrong.
And the reality is, the MAJORITY of the population is dangerously overweight, so this isn’t a “some people can’t do what you do!” situation. There are SOLUTIONS, and they don’t have to be difficult or out of reach to anyone.
Why wouldn’t you want more people to be educated in nutrition? Why would you want poverty to be an excuse to not try? Give people a chance, man.
Home economics used to be an elective.
Sad to say, but I feel cooking is an essential, base skill that everyone should have at least a small grasp on, at least for their own wellbeing.
It’s amazing for me to consider that anyone could bake a loaf of bread in their kitchen in a few hours, and nobody, not even Musk could taste it, not even if he wanted to. It’s a sense of ownership and accomplishment, and you… won’t die of starvation, so it has that going for it too.
It’s amazing for me to consider that anyone could bake a loaf of bread in their kitchen in a few hours, and nobody, not even Musk could taste it, not even if he wanted to. It’s a sense of ownership and accomplishment, and you… won’t die of starvation, so it has that going for it too.
That’s such a wonderful perspective! And funny enough, I’ve got a loaf in the bread maker! 😂
The 1% can eat the most expensive steak ever produced, the most valuable cake ever baked, the most rare and exotic delicacy, but those shitheads ain’t having a LICK of this goddamn bread. It is exclusively, an experience for you and anyone you share it with and no one else. That is the big revelation to cooking. Every single dish is one of a kind if you treat it that way.
I’m eating shitty delivered food (including mcdonalds) and I am losing weight. The problem isn’t “bad food” it’s all about controlling calories intake. The only moment where that might not work is if you have some issues - hormonal imbalance or some sort of other illness. But if you eat less and can maintain / withstand that, you will lose weight.
A part that complicates it is nutrition. Nutrients are related to food cravings, but if you don’t have access to food that has the nutrients your body is craving, you might eat other things in an attempt to satisfy that craving. But since they don’t contain what your body needs, the craving doesn’t go away, so the drive to eat more remains.
It’s like the difference between being satisfied and full. For the first one, your body decides it doesn’t need anything more and the desire to eat just isn’t urgent (comfort/habit eating can still be a thing though). When you’re full, it just means your stomach is full and you can’t eat more without discomfort. But once there’s room again, the hunger might return.
It was something I’d always notice with McDonald’s. One big Mac never felt like it was enough. I’d eat the food and then be disappointed because it was all gone but I still wanted to eat.
But a good meal with a variety of ingredients can satisfy even if the volume of food isn’t high. Like I’ve only tried fine dining once and went in to the 9 course meal expecting to need to stop for a burger or something afterwards because I knew the portions of each course would be tiny. I walked out of that restaurant with room in my belly but no desire to fill it with anything else.
It’s also why pregnancy cravings are so strong. The body needs more nutrients when building another body, plus the timing of accessing those nutrients is more important.
The problem isn’t “bad food” it’s all about controlling calories intake.
Yup, that’s what I’ve always said.
Top athletes eat loads and loads and loads of highly processed, high calorie food… and they have low body fat and are at peak fitness.
That’s because they treat food a fuel, and if people are eating food (fuel) as if they were a competitive athlete, but spend their day in a chair, they’re going to get fat!
But in terms of cost, it’s way more expensive to be eating delivered food than to make basic recipes.
Yeah, for sure. The problem is cooking for one. If you are inexperienced, you tend to overcook and then you either waste that or eat the same thing for five days. Also picky eaters sometimes can’t eat the same thing two days in a row, let alone more. Buuut if you treat cooking as “a job” that pays more than ordering out (where you don’t pay with your time), then it is really worth it for sure.
The problem is cooking for one. If you are inexperienced, you tend to overcook and then you either waste that or eat the same thing for five days.
I honestly think it’s a shame that more people don’t learn how to prepare food, even if it’s just decent quality quick meals.
It’s a skill that everyone should know, not only to help save money, but to nourish the body without much effort.
Sure, if you like making extravagant meals, go for it! Cooking can be a hobby, too.
But so many meals can be made with less than 10 minutes of effort, and you can scale up the quantity to feed your entire family without adding more time and lowering the overall cost per portion.
It doesn’t mean extravagant, it means “a lot of food to eat”. I know how to cook. The intuition of how much I need to cook comes with more experience, but it means I’d need to go through months of me cooking too much and either throwing it away, or eating the same thing for a long time. When you cook for two or more, the dishes just disappear. You can skip a day, your partner will eat it though. So then you do, and suddenly four days worth of meals are gone.
The intuition of how much I need to cook comes with more experience, but it means I’d need to go through months of me cooking too much and either throwing it away, or eating the same thing for a long time.
I know exactly what you mean! Having raised kids, and now grandkids, this problem can come up often!
My only suggestion here (for anyone), is to make less than you think you can eat, and then have simple sides or snacks to cover any shortfalls. It’s far too easy to over prepare meals, so you do bring up a good point!
That’s just cuz yo mama so fat the color wheel went all the way 'round her.
Coding data in color is a pet-peeve of mine. As a colorblind person, maps like this are nearly useless to me.
Don’t worry, this particular map is just as useless for everyone.
There is an ISO somewhere that sets out color blind colors for accessibility.
Dark = bad
Simulated red/green colorblind (the most common one). Dark = bad sorta works but not all the way.
This is how I see the map. Didn’t notice CO was green until a comment mentioned it.
That’s cause red and green both look like puke green to people with the most common type of colorblindness.
it’s really just a Gameboy huh
If a GameBoy could reproduce shades of blue and yellow too, then yeah, like a GameBoy.
I first got this realization when I started using grey scale mode for my phone at night. A “good to bad” scale in an app became unintelligible. Since then I try to consider colorblindness if I design stuff myself. It’s fantastic if color scales carry meaning in both their colour but also the same meaning in their lightness, so everyone can understand them the same.
The green is almost exactly the same in value as the red or orange, whatever that color is.
If it helps, Washington D.C. and Colorado are the only “green” ones.
I don’t see anything represented by the “<20%”, “45%-50%” or “50%+” colors. Not sure why they’re even included.
Thanks, I could kind of tell CO by comparing to those around it, but that’s not an option the way DC is presented.
The first 2 on the legend look darker than the following 3 .
I agree with the zombiepirate. Colour coded maps are useless for about 25% of the population.
The green doesn’t follow that.
Sorry, but when people complain about obesity and talk about how easy it is for them to be healthy, all I think about is my brother. He eats more than me and isn’t any more active than me, but hes borderline underweight and can’t keep weight on to save his life. YES, people don’t take care of themselves, I know, that’s not my point. At my most active, most healthy eating part of my life, the best shape I’ve ever been, I was still considered overweight, so forgive me for rolling my eyes at this.
I realize some people struggle more than others.
I’m mostly talking about the extreme obesity.
thats just big boned
Yeah, the skinniest couple I know eats candy and taco bell all day long (they’re approaching 30 so that teen metabolism is long gone). They’re not unusually active or anything, just thin. My husband is thin and has basically zero regard for his diet. Southern amounts of butter on everything. I’m much more careful than him, I enjoy plain veggies as snacks (as opposed to his pastries) and I’m ten pounds more than him at 7 inches shorter than him.
I eat fast food a lot and people have this perception about me but the reality is I only usually eat one meal a day so overall I’m not overeating. Admittedly it’s terrible nutritionally but my living arrangement limits my options.
It’s not hard to stay skinny/lose weight while eating sugar/fast food. At one point I was doing intermittent fasting - I had 1 slice of cake a day and it was delicious. I just ate that slice and I lost weight.
Im not trying to be mean or anything, but how active and how healthy were you eating at that time?
Mildly infuriating you didn’t say what’s being measured.
It is in my title
I created this post and then edited it a few seconds later. Apparently the changes didn’t propagate.
Ah yes. I too have 20% obesity.
But what about your state?
Fat explosion
Sure, but what constitutes obesity in the U.S.A.?
It is based on BMI
I first noticed when I went to a Walmart in the Midwest.
I understand it would be based on BMI, but the threshold for obesity varies per country. I remember the health ministry in my country increased the threshold for obesity from 24 to 25 in an attempt to decrease the obesity numbers.
Eventually, BMI only works for “regular” people and not for “sportive” people or “athletes” as muscle is heavier than fat. (A body builder may have a BMI of 26 with little to no fat)
BMI “works” for populations. It was originally designed and characterized to measure populations, and so it’s the perfect thing to compare massive populations, like states. The majority of people are adequately characterized by BMI, just as they are by waist circumference measures. The “outliers” are vastly more likely to pipe up online.
The people who don’t understand what you mean but are obese are more likely to pipe up online.
Is it possible they’re expressing admiration or paying you a compliment and not trying to invoke your smirking condescension?
Incidentally, according to the most recent CDC numbers, Colorado is no longer “green” on this map, just Hawaii and DC.
There’s only eight states under 30%. West Virgina tops the numbers at 41%.
~75% of the United States is classified as overweight or obese, which is staggering. It has to be pretty unevenly distributed even within states, because I live in a college town in a low-middle-weight state, and very few appear obese, and I’m regularly in a nearby major metro, and I don’t see a ton of obese people there either. Rural children are 10-15 times more likely to obese, so I’m guessing that is probably a major factor as well.
25-35% obesity rates covers like 80% of states, so the US is just fat and getting fatter.
Unevenly distributed, but also statistical bias. Anywhere you go obese people are less likely to be out and about.
A good way to sample is a hospital or Dr office waiting room.
That be the inverse uneven distribution. You want somewhere everyone has to go, regardless of health
Pretty sure healthy and unhealthy people go to the doctors for check ups. In fact, healthy people might be more likely to go to their annual appointment.
An annual checkup is a blip in comparison to the frequency of visits by the unhealthy
I’d expect a county map to more appropriately show the trend. Coastal cities can steamroll stats for a state with vastly disproportional representation. I would expect cities to have lower obesity rates due to increased travel by walking while deep rural counties to have higher rates due to driving everywhere, including on your own property. Perhaps it’s not California and New York that’s doing the right thing, but rather LA and NYC doing the heavy lifting. A county map could also pull in variation correlated to ethnicity of people (genetics, imported cultural norms) and ethnicity/variety of food available, too (can you get fresh fare or is it all McDonald’s?). I would expect DC to be more in line with other large metro counties.
Basically the same issues with the electoral college. States are big and not necessarily a good representation of human statistics. Counties may not be granular enough, but I expect it to be an improvement. I’m not seeing date marked results past 2008.
I have no relevant comments for Colorado, I don’t get it
Agreed. A more granular map would be interesting to see. I mean, something like 65% of NY state’s population live in the NYC metro, which is a tiny part of a deceptively large state.
Re: Colorado, it’s just a relatively healthy state with a general ethos of living well. I think you’re seeing some of the urban effect through the Denver, Colorado Springs, etc. and the addition of rural areas of Colorado still having an outdoorsy culture, as well as (often) affluent rather than “rural poor.” Colorado has one of the lowest rural poverty rates in the United States.
And since Colorado would be in the 25-29.9 category now, it’s comparable to many states that also have comparable rural poverty rates. The fact that the states with the highest rural poverty also have the highest weights makes me assume obesity rates and poverty rates heavily overlap.
Edit: to the point, look at the county map for childhood obesity. You can literally point out almost every major city in the United States.
Is it getting fatter, though? Modern obesity drugs have got to be making a dent now.
Well for the wealthy, sure. Can’t ever stop taking your drugs to fix your life and need the funds to do it.
The new semiglutide drugs have only been on the market since about 2019, and in the best cases members in the study only lost up to 30% bodyweight (and real world data that’s been trickling in is even less, topping out at around 15-20%) so for someone who needs to halve their weight it’s only getting them part of the way there.
Additionally they work by mucking with one’s metabolism so the patient wouldn’t feel hungry. That only helps people who are overweight due to overeating. Tons of people have undiagnosed health issues that muck with their weight, and we all know the systemic challenges related to healthcare access and access to diagnosis and treatment, especially with how doctors tend to treat to patients who are minorities, female, overweight or any combination of the above.
Also most patients are not able to keep the weight off after stopping semiglutide treatment, even in studies where participants were simultaneously given personalized diet and exercise guidance and switched to a placebo treatment, as soon as treatment was stopped the weight returned.
These new semiglutide treatments are incredible and are allowing people to lose weight more successfully and more effectively than they might have ever been able to, but they aren’t the entire solution to the obesity epidemic.
If you want to learn more, I highly recommend this episode of the Maintenance Phase podcast for more details (transcript and sources also available!)
I think the main problem is that people are eating way to much sugar and salt. The problem is that a lot food you can buy at the store has way to much sugar and salt. Also some people have grown up being conditioned to eat junk like heavy sugar and grease.
Do you have any source for salt casing obesity? I’ve never heard of that being a thing.
It doesn’t cause obesity to my knowledge. It does cause heart disease and blocks circulation.
When I say salt I also mean cholesterol and saturated fat
Anecdotal story about Colorado.
I visited CO a couple of times a while ago for work. I was in my mid 30’s (2007) and fairly fit. I left Cincinnati Airport surrounded by overweight people all around me where I felt pretty good about myself. I arrived in Denver, and suddenly felt like I was on the less fit side of the spectrum.
It was VERY obvious the change. It was not something I noticed / thought about in Cincinnati, but it hit me like a ton of bricks when I landed in CO.
I’ve talked about that experience through the years. I have to watch what I eat, and work to be ‘as fit’ as I am, it definitely does not just come natural or anything remotely like. I drove around / hiked pretty much every moment I was not working and both trips were amazing. Such a beautiful state!
When I moved to Colorado from the midwest in the 90’s, my weight started to drop. When I left Colorado for Arizona, my weight went back up.
Partly it was the food, but really it was the outdoor activities… if you wanted to hang with friends, you spent time outside. (Though restaurants seemed to have healthier options, there were just less restaurants overall so I ended up cooking more too)
Ya, the amount of people outside bicycling, hiking, rafting I saw out there was awesome!
I think there is a lot less of a sugar culture here. People drink water and seek fresh food. If people are seeking junk companies will serve junk. When the general population wants fresh healthy meals that is what companies will sell. In my experience many people in Colorado want healthier food which creates a demand.
I think it has to do with the population
in the '90s*
Arizona…
I was skinny when I lived in Boston, but blew up like a balloon when I moved to Arizona.
When I went to Japan in college for 2.5 months I felt kinda big (I was normal weight), but then my flight back home stopped in Texas and…WOW the absolute SHOCK. I felt like a twig. This was many years ago and I still remember it so clearly.
I got to experience Japan too, but I was even younger but 6’ tall. So my experience there was mostly around how I could see over everyone :)
I live in Japan and am overweight, though slowly dropping it. Two years ago, I went back for the first time in like 6+ years and was shocked and horrified at how huge people were.
Nice, I live in insufficient data!
I’ve only visited Colorado once, during my cross country road trip maybe 10 years ago (I’ve since left the US) and loved it there. I did notice how much healthier/thinner everyone was. I was in Boulder for 2-3 days and did a couple day hikes. Everyone was very friendly. I would love to live there. As someone who’s on the higher side of normal weight, I’ve never felt so unfit.
Is this OP’s way of asking the rest of us to send OP holiday snacks ?
Do you need food OP ?
I would like others to care for themselves. Stop slowly killing yourself.
I’m good. I’m a 150 lb six footer. But holiday cookies are still welcome into my hutch. People used to die from just winter coming and starving. Don’t be too disappointed at us for falling for biology.
Enjoy the winter celebrations, my kind OP. And I will continue to work on it, too.
That’s not that bad. I have family who are in the 250-400 range (my estimate)
My BMI is well on the obesity side, though I’m reasonably fit and more importantly, have built some muscle. I think last we checked it was around 35 or so, yet I do frequent 25km day off-road marches with ~25kg backpack just keep my body comfortable with the much less frequent, though much more enjoyable, longer hikes I try to fit in each year. Last I ran the (admittedly not all that useful) Cooper’s test, I got just past the 3km threshold.
All this, while technically being… *checks notes*… obese.
I’m 92kg and around 170cm, which I think gets close to 200lb and 5’7 in the land of the free units. Never felt better about my body and shape, although back in the day when I was doing my NCO school, I was in a much better shape. But about the same weight. Now I have some fluff on my dad belly. But I really find it sad that so many are scared of weight, when it’s the composition that matters.
I think speech like this is scaring people off of gaining a healthy amount of muscle, especially if they are longer in height than average. I’m short and I had to work a lot to get this weight and muscle. Someone tall wouldn’t have to work as much, and would not even be in as good a shape, but feel doubly worse because a lot of people just talk about all this in terms of weight.
All I’m saying is we should be critical of both using BMI in anything else than statistics where it’s at least helpful, and weight alone, which is even less helpful in any general sense. The kids will be too thin and frail in general, if they are scared of getting a healthy amount of strength, since that easily throws the scales off.
???
Happy to elaborate, if I was unclear somewhere
BMI is sketchy and at the boundary points doesn’t take build into account. Still, at large BMIs it does reflect a general fat burden.
I’m a pretty healthy person. I work out regularly, this summer biked up to 8 very hilly miles every day and I’ve been actively reducing sugar in my diet. It’s nice to let loose for holidays and indulge in more sugary and savory foods than you normally would. It’s part of the fun of holidays.
Also stop fat shaming. There’s a million and one reasons for people to be fat and there’s a million and one reasons for people to be thin. Would you judge less if you knew your super skinny cousin was only skinny because he starves himself and purges after the pendulum swing back and he binges? Or that your fat aunt was fighting with an idiot rhumotologist who insists the tests he ran that indicate an autoimmune disease which also causes weight gain don’t indicate that same autoimmune disease? Or how about a fat uncle who only eats one meal a day, tons of salads, walks multiple miles but never sees his weight change no matter what? Or your grandmother who periodically goes into an expensive commercial starvation diet so close to the edge you aren’t allowed to excercise in order to lose weight?
These are all real experiences of people I know, and I know these experiences because I stopped to listen instead of jumping to judgment. Of all of the people I know who struggle with either gaining or losing weight I only know 2 people who found changing their diet actually affected their weight
No, the reason people are fat is diet and lack of physical activity, they just don’t want to give up their lifestyle. Nothing changes “calories in vs calories out”. Saying it is “glandular” and such is a way of defending your drug of choice, food. If you keep a food diary you quickly realize how many more calories you are eating than you admit. Now changing that is tough because every fiber in your being is fighting you and it requires a multipronged approach. I know people who have lost weight and kept it off through diet and changing their attitude towards food (i.e. not treating it like a reward).
the reason people are fat is diet and lack of physical activity
only eats one meal a day, tons of salads, walks multiple miles but never sees his weight change
Calories in/calories out would have a couple of my friends looking like skeletons. I’ve seen their lifestyles up close and theyre healthier than I am. There’s simply more to the story than just diet and exercise. Many autoimmune diseases, and other incurable and/or chronic health conditions directly cause weight gain/prevent weight loss.
Or put another way, I’ve weighed about 120lbs the entire time I’ve been an adult, whether my diet was 90% poptarts and candy (I wish that was an exaggeration) while doing no exercise at all or a super whole dairy and veggie heavy diet combined with regular varied excercise. If I can be entirely incable of gaining weight while doing everything that should make me a balloon, why isn’t the inverse possible?
Nobody ever worries about the health of the skinny person because they’re skinny and therefore healthy. Nobody ever worries about a fat person who’s gotten skinny because obviously they’re getting healthier (never mind if they’ve got an eating disorder and are on the verge of suicide. They’re skinny now so theyre totally healthy!)
Stop trying to educate fat people about their moral failing and maybe listen instead to what their lived experiences are
Fuck off. My favorite meal of the day is breakfast. I’ve been doing without it in an attempt to lose weight for 2 years now. Also making it a point to walk on a treadmill at work twice a day. It is measurable fact I eat less now than I did 2 years ago, and am more active, and yet my weight continues to hover around 300 pounds. 5 years ago I quit smoking cold turkey after 20 years, so it’s not like I lack willpower. But go ahead, tell me all about it.
The colour scheme exaggerates this a little bit. 20-some isn’t that different from 30-some.
Time to add another hole to the Bible belt.
Kentucky: “don’t bother asking”
If you look at the numbers from the state it would be dark red
How did CO do that? Free lunch in school? This does not seem to be something you can do by having more virtuous people.
Coloradans typically live a very active lifestyle. Outdoor recreation is a huge part of people’s lives. Therefore they’re moving a lot more and typically thinner
Ok, but what makes them this way. All of their neighbors have above average obesity.
The outside be nice and shit.
Also decent accessibility and cycling (compared to the deep red states)
This guy went there and asked everyone the same question: https://youtu.be/2rb198Hgllk?si=5RJYtCB9WLaV6W0s
Basically just social pressure driving everyone to be skinny, or be shunned. Lots of eating disorders.
Eating like a normal person doesn’t mean eating disorders. I just don’t eat a lot of sugar and I make fresh food.
I physically feel bad when I eat to much junk. Healthy food makes you feel better as it doesn’t spike your sugar.
You might not have an eating disorder but some people you know might. Many people with eating disorders don’t know that they have them or even convince themselves that they don’t even when provided obvious evidence that they do.
Fat shaming just tells people they only matter if they’re thin, and doesn’t discriminate between healthy weightloss and eating disorders that could kill them. Fat shaming just makes the world less healthy because it encourages disordered eating and poor relationships with food.
I think fat shaming doesn’t make anything better.
However, offering health options is not fat shaming.
You might think you’re “offering health options” but in reality it’s just unsolicited advice which no matter the subject is almost always unwelcome at best and counterproductive at worst.
It’s like if I told you to backup your computer or run a virus scan on your computer. Yes it’s good advice for good maintenance tasks on any computer but you know just how likely those tasks are to fix whatever you’re dealing with on your computer at this moment, and if that’s advise you really needed you need much more information than is provided to actually meaningfully use the advice. If your unsolicited advise is only a sentence long, it’s too vague to be useful to someone who needs it and to anyone else it’s unhelpful and belittling to assume they don’t already know that.
TL;DR “offering health options” is a form of fat shaming
Plus sugar and salt make exercise unpleasant
I live in Colorado, and one day I stepped on the scale and noticed that I hit a milestone, did the math and realized that per my BMI I just hit the obese line (check yours, it’s probably lower than you think).
I decided that I was not going to be the guy fucking up this map for my fellow Coloradans, so I started eating more vegetables, fewer carbs, and fewer calories overall, and lost 25 pounds.
So, I’d say peer pressure helps.
Get out and go for a hike. That will help immensely.
I’m wondering what bias there may be for people from a place versus moving to a place. Many have noted the culture of activity in Colorado, and that may be pulling non-obese people from other states to Colorado. Not that it would sway the numbers that much, but as an anecdote, everyone I know in Colorado moved there from a different state and fit, and moved there for activities.
Colorado has a good set of policies that support consistent and long term public funding of outdoor recreation, such as trails and parks. The level of connectivity among local and regional trail systems is very good and always improving.
High elevation makes the body work harder because there’s less oxygen. Elite athletes train in the high country for the effects.
Only for a short period of time. You adapt and the effects go away since your body creates more red blood cells.
But then those athletes go down to sea level for a competition and have an advantage
For a few days as your body recycles the extra red blood cells
Yup. Go to high elevations, and until you acclimate you’ll feel a little off. Go to low elevations, and for the equal but opposite reasons you can run a marathon and outdrink anyone.
Altitude is an appetite suppressant.
The trend of altitude being inversely correlated with obesity rates is really obvious from county-level data. That trend persists across multiple countries, but the specific correlation varies from country to country, in a way that suggests that rich countries have a stronger inverse correlation between altitude and obesity.
Today I learned….
Haha. What’s interesting is there’s other high country in the US but it’s not green in this map. Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Idaho…
And with the exception of vermont and a small part of NY, most of the yellow in the northeast is low lying areas not very high above sea level. California has mountains too.
That’s why the county level data makes the trend that much more obvious, because the states tend to clump big groups together. Here’s an example.
There, you can see that Colorado is special in that its rural counties tend to be low obesity, compared to even its neighbors in the Rockies. You also see a sliver of green following the Appalachian Mountains.
And obviously it isn’t the only factor. Poverty is really important, as are lifestyles (and the intentional and unintentional features of any given community in incentivizing or disincentivizing things like walking, regular exercise, eating healthy, etc.).
Oh yeah, it near perfectly captures where the mountains are. The green areas are mountains and cities. NH is interesting, the darkest part is where the ski areas are, the lighter part is the more populated area.
Are you sure it is not the other way around? Maybe the driven people who are physically fit are moving to higher elevation. If someone is obese they probably aren’t going to move to rual mountains
Culture of healthy thinking plus a lot of athletics
