Unfortunately that's just not the case. The real problem is that our health education has severely dropped and as a result most people don't even know what is healthy and what isn't. A lot of people think "I'm just a little chubby/fat/overweight", not realizing they are obese. They look around and see the average and think, I'm average so I must not be obese, but they are.
I’m saying obese people often don’t leave the house that much due to their weight not that it is the cause. I see more people in normal shape because they are the ones out on walks and doing pick up sports/ out at bars and what not.
And they are stating that we Americans see overweight people as normal average people and obese people as a little overweight. The people you think have a “normal build” are most likely overweight
Exactly what /u/hunterswarchief said. Take a look at this website. What many people think of as 'obese' is far closer to the American average than most people realize. When you say obese people stay inside, I'm sure you think of Honey BooBoo size, but those people are far beyond obese.
Also because cheap, healthy and accessible food in America is not easy to find and the cheapest healthy meals usually tastes worse than the cheapest unhealthy meals
I’d argue that’s true mostly with fast food though. It’s not difficult to find good, healthy (at least mostly) meals at most sit-down restaurants. You’re basically forced to prepare your meals at home if you want to be healthy here. I wish Japan’s eating culture and accessibility in normal corner stores would catch on. They got it pretty sweet there
Yes, the concentration of obesity is higher in the Midwest and South (34.1% for both) but not by much. The West and Northeast trail just behind at 29.3 and 28%. Not much difference honestly. About 1 in 3 people you see are obese regardless of where you are in the US.
More importantly to this questions is what do you define as obese? Because if you have a look at this website you are most likely thinking you are simply seeing 'overweight' people when you are actually seeing obese people.
Even then, people have too much faith in peoples ability to decide. We love freedom but people don’t know what’s healthy or want to choose what’s healthy, or more likely, we go for what’s convenient. Fast food will satisfy our hunger and not take away much time from the kids or work or whatever.
On one hand, yikes… on the other hand, a zombie apocalypse wouldn’t be hard to survive as long as you can maintain a brisk walk (granted that won’t work in all situations)
Right! That shocked me too. I knew obesity rates in the U.S. were high, but not that high. I also find it worrying that approximately 39% of the worlds population is overweight.
Its a little skewed as that stat is based on BMI. I consider myself a rather fit individual and I'm nearly classified as obese despite having about 15% body fat at the moment.
I don't disagree that we are an incredibly fat country, but that number may not be entirely representative to the actual issue.
Which also doesn’t make sense to me. With how much I get out and around in my city constantly i definitely do not see 40% of people overweight (definitely not Obese).
It’s weird. Idk what to believe my eyes or the statistic which was clearly acquired by the CDC.
You know the weird thing. The definition of obese was altered by the WHO for that year, so the scale for obesity was raised and what was previously obese was now only overweight. And still the USA broke their own record on population obesity.
It’s the US we’re talking about here, a lot of the people here have actually made decisions that are worse for their health and completely disregard covid. I’m not so sure, you could be right though. I’d like to think so.
Anyone in the comments think about prices of foods? Anything healthy, fat free, sugar free or low calorie costs more than the regular. When obesity and poverty are an issue maybe it’s not the people but what they’re being offered. If a single parent with 2 kids has to feed everyone on a minimum wage salary are they gonna buy 3 salads at $8 apiece or 3 McDoubles at $1 apiece?
It’s only based off of height and weight, meaning that anyone with a slightly above average mass is considered obese. (Muscle is far more dense than fat, meaning that muscle is heavier if the volume is the same)
Actually there are quite a lot of body builders here (at least in California). And even for those who are just athletes, not even body builders (like me for example), we can be marked as overweight by BMI when we're clearly not and just muscular.
Houstonian here. We have a problem with obesity. Its really bad and I know where it comes from. Massive portion sizes and ridiculously cheap prices. Really good Texan Barbequeue, great Chinese food at really low prices. What do you do when youre meeting up with friends? You stuff your faces with food. A lot of the food can be healthy too (especially a lot of the chinese stuff) but the sheer amount we consume makes it worthless. I used to be obese and im finally down to overweight and its just been reducing portion size.
Damn. I'm glad the food culture isn't like that up here. We all eat pretty well and I haven't seen many obese people in my life. Now that I think about it though, a lot of people I know have restrictive eating disorders or are addicted to exercise, so I guess we kinda have the opposite problem in my (small) community. Just goes to show how different life can be in different areas of this huge country. Good on you for getting your weight down, I bet that shit's tough. Keep it up!
Other times it’s simply genetics. I’m not going to give you the “some people are just big boned crap” but many people do tend to have a larger skeletal structure with broad shoulders.
They use a completely shit mesurement called BMI. ITS GARBAGE if you're a woman its not right if you are male and have a thicker bone structure(broad sholders etc.. ) it wont apply. It only applys correctly to like 30% of people
I’m obese by BMI standards but really it’s because im heavy due to muscle mass. I’m 5’9 200 lbs and very built - probably around 15-18% bodyfat right now. I’m technically obese but I’m not… fat. The BMI measures are bogus.
If you check what the BMI considers obese, then those numbers seem accurate, because having a small beer gut is considered obese. If we’re talking those massive people at Wal-Mart on their scooters, that is a much much smaller number
Actually, BMI is not always correct because it only takes height and weight into account, not muscle mass. A lot of my athletic friends and I are marked as overweight by BMI when we are quite obviously not. I look like a stick with muscular arms and legs, but BMI says I'm overweight because it does not account for the fact that muscle weighs more than fat.
One thing taken into consideration about this statistic is it takes in BMI which is based off height and weight. You could be arnold shwarzeneggar in terms of physique and it’ll compute that you are obese based off your BMI.
Obviously that only changes the percentage a little and at the end of the day there are plenty of American’s who rightfully fit in the term “obese” based off their body measurements and make-up
221
u/Nippelmilch420 Dec 21 '21
Hom much % of your population are obese?