Summary
A new Lancet study reveals nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, a sharp rise from just over half in 1990.
Obesity among adults doubled to over 40%, while rates among girls and women aged 15–24 nearly tripled to 29%.
The study highlights significant health risks, including diabetes, heart disease, and shortened life expectancy, alongside projected medical costs of up to $9.1 trillion over the next decade.
Experts stress obesity’s complex causes—genetic, environmental, and social—and call for structural reforms like food subsidies, taxes on sugary drinks, and expanded treatment access.
Not really surprising when all food is so processed and pumped full of all kinds of bullshit, from high fructose corn syrup to preservatives to you name it.
Fun anecdote - I moved to Europe from the states a year back, and lost almost 20 pounds in that time without explicitly doing anything different. Just from the better food quality, and walking more in daily life (walkable cities and good public transportation!)
The design of our cities and culture in north america definitely doesn’t help. Sit in your metal box and drive to the front door (or drive thru and don’t even leave the car), sit at a desk all day unless you’re in the trades, go home and sit down to consume netflix/youtube/games, order fast food delivered to your door.
Sure nobody is forcing people to live like this but parts of our society certainly feels like it is encouraged. People look at me funny and friends have questioned me if I park and walk into a business with a drive thru, even though I usually get faster service that way
How is walking more not something different?
Well, I meant as in, without actively changing anything, like going to the gym more or whatever. Just passive environmental changes.
I took it to mean that they didn’t go out of their way to walk more, it was simply the better option to get around and so they just did that instead of driving a car. After moving from a car-centric city to one with a metro I totally get it and I do go for walks just for fun.
It’s not just about whether or not you can do something but about how available that thing is. Going for a walk can suck real bad in North America, surprisingly. Things like shitty food being the cheaper option, in a country racing to get its working class to be as disproportionately impoverished as possible, can make it hard to justify getting better quality stuff, too.
Yea it sucks walking next to 6 lanes of high speed traffic and basically no noise restrictions on cars. Once I moved somewhere that I could walk to the grocery store down quiet, tree lined streets most of the way, it became my preferred way. The built environment influences how you travel a lot.
And they bought different food too lol. You can buy clean vegetables, proteins and fresh non sugar bread in America. (Not that sliced sugar wonder bread shit). They just apparently chose the junk food (which is wildly available no question about that) when it was put in front of them.
When in a grocery with less of the junk (theres still junk in UK and EU Groceries), they chose better stuff.
Unless they want to make a claim that something like raw broccoli, raw grass fed beef, raw beans are substantially different in the eu. That wasn’t my experience, it’s just more prominent
Like, if you eat processed chips and cookies in America or the EU it’s still junk
Things like shitty food being the cheaper option, in a country racing to get its working class to be as disproportionately impoverished as possible, can make it hard to justify getting better quality stuff, too. Does help that the culture is also pretty bad around that stuff so maybe going to Europe was the moment they were finally taken out of the toxicity of their local community.
I had the opposite experience. I got fat while eating nothing but stone soup! We just put in some onions and celery for flavor, and potatoes for bulk. Add some bacon and a ham hock, and melt in cream cheese to thicken it.