How Did Americans Get So Fat, In Seven Charts
Americans are fat. They are so fat very few would even bother to click on a hyperlink in this article explaining how fat they are, so instead we will present an animated chart showing the severity of the US obesity problem over the past 30 years.
Cartoons aside, here are the facts: today two-thirds of U.S. adults are overweight or obese. Half are afflicted with chronic conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure that can often be prevented with better diets, but aren't and as a result debt-funded healthcare costs have exploded, and while this chronic obesity has made pharma companies richer beyond their wildest dreams, it means future US healthcare spending and welfare obligations are unsustainable.
America didn't get this way overnight. The average calories available to the average American increased 25 percent, to more than 2500, between 1970 and 2010, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. There was no extra meal added to the day, instead an evolution in the type of foods Americans eat led to steady growth in calories.
Added fats and grains account for a growing share of total caloric intake. These two categories, which include oils and fats in processed foods and flour in cereals and breads, made up about 37 percent of our diet in 1970. By 2010, they were 46 percent—a larger share of the growing pie. One of the main factor: cost; the increasingly more caloric foods become progressively cheaper and more affordable. The result: more of the lower and middle classes gravitated toward it, leading to the epidemic shown above.
Here, courtesy of Bloomberg, are seven charts showing the detail behind America's troubling obesity trend.
First, this is where America's calories come from.
Cheese is replacing milk.
A lot more fat goes into our foods.
Calories from wheat, rice, and corn have increased. This includes refined grains like white bread that provide calories but are stripped of much of the nutrients in whole grains.
There are some indications that Americans are changing their diets to become healthier. For example, we're swapping red meat for chicken.
And though corn syrup boomed since the 1970s, the total amount of sweeteners we eat has declined. That's partly because Americans are drinking less soda.
These positive changes haven't negated the overall increase in calories on our plates. More than two-thirds of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, compared to less than half in the 1970s.
The government's dietary guidelines are simple: "Almost all people in the United States could benefit from shifting choices to better support healthy eating patterns." Right, now if only the government would also subsidize this healthy - which means more expensive - eating. We won't hold our breath: after all the massive pharma lobby would generate far less profits for its clients if US obesity were to sharply decline as a result of someone doing the right thing.
So until something does take place to shock the US out of its fatty momentum, here is Family Guy.
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Yeah, Monsanto, et. al...
;-)
keeping it simple, ha, you r what u eat. and a tad of exercise goes a long way.
when i see a blob, i see unhappiness. so it is moar to the point to say we have a serious happiness issue in merica, supported by some serious mental health issues, which in turn give credence to the drug addiction issue called prescription drugs, the cure all administered by the ama as the gatekkeper via prescriptions, another payolla...
pretty fucked up mess
starting with cheap food for the masses...
and preying on the human delema-laziness...
eat potato chips>feel shitty and watch nascar
drink a healthy juiced concotion>go for bike ride or get motivated to "get-r-done"!
Here in Suisse all the fat people are African and Middle Eastern immigrants. All of them - I'm not kidding. The children of those immigrants are so fat and disgraceful you wouldn't believe it.
The FSA eat like pigs.
they dont eat what they are?
So why in f* are they there?
Give me a break. I'm a biker and I don't even believe this. Bicycles are great but if you think bankers are going to get off your back simply because we reduce some oil consumption you have another thing coming.
Example: Monsanto and the control of food.
Sorry to bust your bubble.
About BMI:
That is a totally screwed up measure. Defining a BMI of 30 to be obese is absolutely NUTS. The people who defined that must be one of those sickly vegetarians you see. I've had a BMI of 30 or more my entire life even when I had 7% body fat. If are are a little on the muscular side you break through this 30 easily and you are definitely not what I would call fat or even pudgy. The descriptor that fits is "muscular" or "athletic" in that case.
This is one of those misuses of mathematics that reminds me of glo-bull warming. Libtards push agendas like "eating less meat" ostensibly for this or that but in reality they want to reduce male testosterone levels because testostorone drives among other things male super rational behavior. And as we know rational thinking is a liberals biggest enemy. ( yes I know some have impulse issues on it but most do not. )
Some of what you say is true, my husband is like you, was so called overweight when playing football for instance, when really he was a very low body fat %.
Never the less, I am very aware that there are more heavy people now than there used to be when I was young.
There was one obese kid in my elementary school. One. I still remember his name, we teased him awfully and he was sort of a friend. Odd relationship. He was smart. When my son was in elementary school, something like 20-30% of them were obese. It is radically different now.
I was asking my parents about this. Look at photos or footage from the Vietnam War era.... How many fat people do you see on any of those colllege campuses? Look at those same places now.
MsCreant: You should expect average "fatness" to have increased. Think about the age demographics.
With age body fat % and weight goes up. DUH! They never consider that this is probably more or less to be expect with average white age going up
and Mexicans and Blacks sitting on their butts as members of the FSA eating food purchased with EBT.
My observations were about kids for a reason. Do you get a chance to observe kids? I never saw this when I was a kid:
http://tinyurl.com/z5tcgw5
Boys with tits, what next?
lol, plus 1...
manly mutha fuks, ha...
say der fellas, want som titty
yea, im a sick fuk, ha...
Google "crowd" pictures from the 1930s-1950s too. Then look at a modern day picof a crowd. Lean people before, now in modernity, refrigerators.
true story and yes I have noticed the same phenom for a long while
Google "crowd" pictures from the 1930s-1950s too. Then look at a modern day picof a crowd. Lean people before, now in modernity, refrigerators.
Yeah. Same here. Only one in my (admittedly small) grammar school. His name was Fatty.
If you're a man and you have "handles" on your sides, or your thighs rub against each other when you walk, you're a fat, obese fuck. Start lifting, hippo.
no doubt man.... there is no denial in the world like a fat middle aged white man who still occasionally gets laid.
Sheesh you're a dipshit. I do lift and even if you are 20 years old it's likely I lift more than you and am in better shape.
Mom was a star athlete and as you know I got my mitochondrial DNA from her. You're seriously stupid assuming so much.
The heavier you are, the more work your heart has to do.
Bikes are great, other than how bad your taint hurts after riding one.
But all things in moderation, you don't want to become these guys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRTlStScolw
You might have the wrong type of seat. When I was in better shape going 60 miles wasn't a big deal for my backside. But, I had worn out a few seats and had learned about the right shape and padding in the process.
I shouldn't have let myself go while writing my thesis. Regaining the lost health takes a long time, but hey, I've lost 30 lbs. so far and am able to do all of my old exercise again. Still have 30 lbs. to go.
I know too well about wrong kind of seat.
Used to be an avid cyclist for nearly a decade - it was part of my marathon training regimen, 25 to 40 miles every other day, sometimes 50-75 miles a stretch. If you like road cycling, and you have a road bike, you probably got gypped into thinking thin road saddles are what you need. Well, they might not be, and they can get you fvcked, depending on your body. After about 30K miles of cycling in my racing saddle (a very comfortable one) over the course of about four to five years, my member went limp for a week. It was fvcking scary. Let me tell you - it's times like that when you never been happier to wake up with morning wood. ;-)
Good ol' skateboards...
p.s. I wonder how many miles I've biked in my life... probably exceeds 100K easily. Wow!
You guys use seats?
http://i64.tinypic.com/2zzngy9.gif
:-)
The height and angle of your saddle makes a big difference too. It's not so much about how thin it is in terms of padding, it's about whether it fits your sit bones properly, and whether there's too much pressure on the incorrect places.
The chart on grain consumption tells the ENTIRE story. Grain calories are up about 150 per day from 1970 to today.
150 extra cals amounts to 15 pounds gained PER YEAR. That is why people have blown up like blimps.
Stop eating fast carbs -- anything made with wheat, corn, rice or sugar/starches and you will effortlessly lose weight and keep it off. No need for expensive "products", meds, or diet scams (sorry oprah).
Yeah but the white demo is aging. Average age means a general weight gain that has been the same since day one.
No doubt that people could do better. I'm just saying it's probably more or less the same as it ever was.
When I was a kid old people got thinner not fatter. No more.
Currently reading Grain Brain at the suggestion of a Zher a few weeks ago.
Doing that is racist against muslims.
If there is such a thing as reincarnation i would like to come back as a woman's bicycle seat. My luck it would be Hillary's bike.
Bubbles
What you don't see in that pic, but you wwill see in Minneapolis, San Franciso, Portland, and Denver, is a group of dindus hiding in the bushes there, about to rape that women and steal her bike.
They run those bike paths through dindustan in every large city. You'd have to be a damn idiot to ride through there.
Colin Flaherty documents hundreds of such attacks on white cyclists in cities all over this country.
I'll ride a mountain bike on trails far from civilization, but riding a road bike around cars and dindus is far too hazardous.
I literally laughed out loud when I read this, so much so that my wife asked me what I was laughing at, and I had to read it to her. She just rolled her eyes. Don't know if you were going for humor with that or not.
Houston is also the second most "international" city in the US behind NY. And in the last 20 years they have created the largest pool of clueless, stupid behaving, moronic drivers in the US. Yippie for multi-culturalism until you're sitting behind one of them who will only turn right on a green light (and i have about 20 other examples)...and good luck if you're behind one of them in a parking lot...they are also decisionphobic and most of them drive like they are either an 11 year old who stole the car keys OR a taxi driver from Mumbai.
My cousin and her husband lived on the American compound in Saudi for several years while he worked for Aramco as an engineer. It was illegal for women to drive in the KSA. When some of the Saudi men knew they were probably going to be relocated for work outside of muslim countries, they would bring their wives to the compound where they could teach those women to drive. Scary.
Very much appreciate the pic....
Simple answer is to get people away from their igadgets. Kids, go outside and play. Excercise much, and eat anything you want. I weigh within 5 lbs. of my playing weight from college. And this having spent most of my adult life in WI, which no one can tell me is NOT the fattest state on the map. Beer and brats ya know?
Modern scientists have been telling us that so many GOOD things are not good for us: like eggs, pure butter, meat, etc. So people chose junk foods and VOILA! Thereofre beware of those Puzzled Scientists>>> http://wp.me/p4OZ4v-2M
True. I have a simple philosophy in life that I like to follow: Always do the opposite of what Jews say.
So now they are really pushing people to eat less beef. I have greatly increased my beef intake. Whatever the Jews tell you to do, do the opposite.
I reckon you're on to something. Mine has always been "never do what a doctor tells you to". Yours covers more ground, I think it may be a basis for living.
Ever notice how many doctors in the US are jews? Now getting displaced by Chinese.
Funny thing is, jews tell us we need to hate and kill muzzies. Hmmm.
See the whole d*mned Komen-ized cancer/death industry. Glucose(a sugar) feeds cancer, Otto Von Warburg won a Nobel prize researching the subject. He was also Hitler's doctor, so you won't hear anything about him today.
Yeah Otto proved over 80 years ago that cancer can't develop in alkaline tissue....
You can skate until dawn, it will do little to burn off the calories that most Americans intake, daily. The culprit is sugar and processed carbohydrates. It is NOT FAT intake. Ask somone who is over 70 how plentiful sugar was, growing up. The rolller mill made white flour. If you don't occasionally reset your body by depleting your glycogen levels, you become leptin intolerant. It's not the same as glucose intolerant, but in the same family. Leptin is the hormone that tells your body that it's not hungry, anymore. Short circuit that process and no matter how much you eat, your body will be in starvation mode. A good way to think of it is the hunter gatherer in the woods. He finds some berry patch or honey and goes to town. Then he doesn't have any for a while. I go for a while eating all the carbs I want and lift weights. I then go for about 6-8 weeks eating NONE. Not a single carbohydrate. The body goes into ketosis and converts fat into fuel. After about 6 weeks or so, I've leaned way down, not lost any muscle and go back to eating some 'berries and honey'.
Nice comment. I have been on a combo paleo-mediterranean diet as daily nutrition for two years. I keep carbs light on the mediterranean side but it adds variety and interest. Dropped 5lbs first two weeks of paleo without excersize. I indulge in mexican food occasionally(I'm New Mexican) because it's traditional and I like the green chile endomorph rush, but try to eliminate flour tortillas. If everyone would make an effort to reduce sugar and wheat you'll be ahead of the game. All sugars shouldn't exceed 30g per day.
depends on your activity. If you are lifting weights you need energy to perform the lifts.
You can seriously load up before a workout as long as you burn it.
True. I can wolf the cliff bars when expending also need it for strenuous mental activity.
If you aren't competing and mostly lifting weights to be healthy, capable, or attractive, you need no carbs. I lift twice a week for twenty minutes tops, with slow steady gains in strength, without any carb intake at all in the 12 to 18 hours prior.
What they're not mentioning is how the fiber has been deliberatly removed from our foods. You can eat all the sugar and carbs you want so long as you match them one to one with fiber. That's why you can get away with murder eating overly sweet fresh fruit like pineapples and such. Fiber cancels out the sugars effects. Try finding a processed grain food with fiber in it, they basically no longer exist, they used too. Makes one wonder where they dump all the extracted fiber?
"Makes one wonder where they dump all the extracted fiber?"
Animal feed.