This New Yorker article had some interesting facts about how American’s weight has changed over the last few decades.
We are getting fatter
Consider some of these points, since the 1970′s…
- Men are on average 17 pounds heavier
- Women are 19 pounds heavier
- The proportion of overweight children has tripled
Currently, 33.3% of the population is overweight and 12 million Americans have a BMI 40!
Theories about why we are fatter
So, you might be wondering why people are getting fatter. Well, here are some of the leading theories.
1. Expensive Tissue Hypothesis – Our brains required lots of energy so they have evolved to make you want foods dense in calories. Now, high calorie food is so easy to get we’re starting to pack on the pounds.
2. Cheap Food Hypothesis – High calorie food has just become much cheaper over the years. We’re fat because it makes financial sense.
Soft drinks make up 7% of all calories ingested in the US
3. Eatertainment - Foods have been optimized to get you to eat more. This is a natural result of capitalism where companies are rewarded when you buy more. Food is a drug manufacturers are the pusher
4. Supersizing – The availability of super sized foods has made us eat more. In the early 1980s, companies discovered they could get us to buy more with larger sizes. And our weight has gone up ever since.
And then there is my own theory…
5. Not enough joggling – With all the TV, Internet, video games, and other great inactive forms of entertainment, people just don’t burn as many calories as they used to.If more people started joggling more, we wouldn’t have the obesity problem.
The only weight loss advice you ever need
Dr. Dean Edell once said that all the diet advice you would ever need could be summed up in a single sentence.
Weight loss is simple, if you burn more calories than you ingest, you’ll lose weight.
And if you want to make sure you are eating healthy, follow this advice from Michael Pollan’s book In Defense of Food…
Eat food, not too much, mostly plants
Incidentally, if you want to read a good site about obesity and what science is doing to help cure it, check out fellow joggler Travis Saunders’ excellent blog Obesity Panacea
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juggling and running are so portable. i think they’re a great way to get exercise and lose weight, along with proper diet. obesity and inactivity is a serious issue that i feel very strongly about. i try to teach kids small changes to make so that they get more exercise. most americans would be a lot lighter if they stopped eating so much fried food, fatty meat, soft drinks, and low quality sugary carbs. i really hope the new generations try to reverse the current trend in the U.S.