I'm at work on my tiny iPhone but this paper on National, Regional, and Global Trends in Adult Overweight and Obesity Prevalences says: There's others but the data is pretty straightforward.
Not the same thing I was discussing at all. I noted above that variance in weight has greatly increased in the last 100 years, which is the reason for more obesity. But I was talking about the average body fat percentage. While there are more obese people with 30+% body fat percentages, there are also more people these days with body fat percentages of 10% or less, since hardly anyone worked out in a gym a century ago. Has the average body fat percentage gone down or up? I don't think this is straightforward at all.
I dispute this, speaking from personal experience. I do not wear ANYTHING to make a statement or to provoke a reaction. I wear what I wear because it feels good. I have been known to wear Speedo-type swimsuits at the beach (not these days, but back when I was in shape). I love them. They feel great in and out of the water and they're incredibly light and they dry almost instantly and they make me feel like a flying fish in the water. You couldn't pay me to wear board shorts when I'm swimming - believe me, I've tried them, and they make me feel like a farm tractor when I want to be a Ferrari. Of course, I'm not a Ferrari and never have been, but the point stands. I do not wear what I wear to satisfy others. I wear what I wear because I like it. No statements involved. No reactions involved. I'd wear the same thing if nobody else was around at all.
I'm at work so I can't pull up any statistics specifically on body fat percentage, but that's only another tool to determine whether someone is overweight. Can someone be overweight without having a higher TBF%? Also, people didn't need gyms a century ago, they had something called work. I would argue that the burden of proof falls on you, as you are postulating a hypothesis that goes against current scientific data. A larger percentage of our population is overweight, can those people also have a lower TBF%? I don't think so. I would like to know where your hypothesis originated from, besides 'we have gyms now.'
I'd imagine this is rarely the case though. E.g. during a hot summer's day, almost everyone wants to dress sparingly. However, most heavier people are actually very stressed over not being able to wear short-short denim shorts and string tops because they find the rolls repulsive -- perhaps even more so than the outside world. That's one problem I have with fat acceptance movements. While I do think no one should be judged based on their looks, a part of it still promotes the idea that it's ok not to control one's eating or exercise habits.
Let us not forget the class angle. Most cheap, mass produced food is full of crap. People with money tend to have more choice about what they put into their bodies (and perhaps they have the luxury to care more). How you get exercise has changed over the years. Now most of my friends will not walk to the shops and carry their heavy shopping back everyday (we do but we have the luxury of the time to do so). Our nieghbours drive to the town square (it is 50 metres away, I can walk it and be back home before they have parked. People avoid manual tasks (like sawing up your wood for the fire by hand, or even using wood 'cause it's a lot of hard work - just get gas or electric and you can flick a switch), but they will drive to the gym and work out for an hour and then drive home.
Do you mean those who are, well, let's say poor or not so well-to-do financially, can't afford healthy foods and hence are more susceptible to gain weight? So it's not always a matter of choice even, in fact, some of them don't even have a choice because the only food they can afford makes them fat? I understand this if one is more or less invalid, and walking/biking long distances causes terrible pain, or if one has a horde of children to drive around...
In the rich west the poor are more likely to be unhealthy (diet, smoking etc). Cheap food is full of fat, sugar and salt (and horsemeat instead of beef!) to make up for all the good stuff they leave out. If you have a family to feed and a small amount of money, those budget meals are very tempting. Obviously, if you are very poor you may not have enough money to buy even the crap and will therefore not be fat. Generally (rich and poor) people don't want or expect to pay much for food now (and then they are shocked when they find out people are cutting corners and putting horse into their lasagne, rather than beef). Exercise, depends where you live also. Lots of people live in places where they have to drive to the supermarkets (their town centres don't have them any more). Walking may be difficult if you aren't lucky enough to live in the country, or near a park. And as for running (I can't do it, even though I am fit, because it always gives me a bad back) you need to make sure you have decent shoes, or you will damage yourself (if you run on pavements/sidewalks). What's left? A gym. All of this costs money. Paying for exercise is not a top priority for people with not much cash.
No, they can't. By definition. If you're 6' 3", 286 pounds, with 4% body fat, you're an insane athlete, not overweight, even if something like BMI claims you're "morbidly obese". In fact, you're Alexander Karelin, to be specific. Clearly, when I think of overweight and "morbidly obese" people, I picture Karelin about to lift a world-class, struggling, 300 pound wrestler over his head by the waist. Yeah, that must be why the leading athletes of the early 1900s had puny builds compared to freaking high school athletes today. Here is the legendary "Galloping Ghost" Red Grange, as an ADULT (generously listed at 170 pounds) And here is top 2013 high school running back prospect Derrick Green, who is 18 years old (listed at 220 pounds); Clearly, lifting weights, which only started becoming big in the 1970s, had NOTHING to do with the startling evolution of the athlete. Yet, you haven't presented any "current scientific data" that mentions average body fat percentage. How come? Perhaps because this supposed "consensus" doesn't actually exist? You simply made it up? Do you honestly not understand the concept of variance? I recommend you read up on it. But as a simple example, if you have a set of two people with body fat percentages of 18% and 22%, the average body fat percentage is 20%. That's the same as a set of two people with body fat percentages of 10% and 30%, except that in the latter case, the variance is much higher, and you have one guy hitting the "severely overweight" point. I don't have any hypothesis. You're the one who made a claim (the average person is much fatter!), and thus far, has shown nothing to support it. Yes, there are a lot more overweight people today. There are also way more really fit people today. I see regular guys training at my gym who dwarf the leading bodybuilders of the 40s and 50s. The variance has clearly gone up, but what about the average?
Indeed, resisting the temptation is a challenge to many who are trying to break free from a potentially unhealthy lifestyle. Some of this comes down to laziness. I'm right now pretty much on the financial bottom ladder because I'm a student, can only work part-time, and the student grand is peanuts and in Finland you have to pay more for food than in other EU countries. Still, I can easily afford healthy food. But I understand when one has a lot of kids, a busy schedule, etc. they just might not have the energy to scour the shelves for -30 % discounts, freeze their food, or shop in the right places. I'm often pressed for time, so I exercise at home. Some people think it can't be demanding, but actually I often get my toughest work-outs at home because exercises with your own body-weight are pretty damn tough (the main reason I go to the gym is the heavy bag). An overweight friend of mine slimmed down to size 6; all her work-outs were done at home and cost her virtually nothing. Most people could do this if they just asked/googled how. In fact, if people actually looked for information more actively, they'd even learn how to run right in 39,90 EUR shoes on asphalt if they really wanted to run (it can be tough for joints so someone with a lot of excess weight might just get hurt and, as a result, discouraged, then depressed, and then it's muffins galore all over again). Anyway, my point was that being poor doesn't mean one couldn't live healthily here in the West, but it can be exhausting, and I understand that some people just have other priorities and/or way bigger problems.
Yup, agree with you on the whole excercise without gym. I've never exercised at the gym, I've done all my workouts at home. And from being a bit overweight person , really unhealthy(and I mean REALLY) person to a fit, healthy guy wasn't that hard once you learned how to cheat your mind to get rid of bad habits, resist temptation(that chocolate sure does looks nice D and exercise often. The hardest bit is to keep exercising once the motivation goes away but I have respect for anyone who keeps going anyway.
Out of interest, how is it more complicated? Food is, in general, cheaper in the US, isn't it (e.g. here a 1 liter carton of milk costs € .95 that is, $1.3)? And there seems to be more variety, too. Oh, and over here the average salary of a middle-class worker is too low in comparison to basic living costs -- that's already well-acknowledged in my country. I do know that in some places it's impossible to get anywhere without a car. On the other hand, my hubby and I also own a car because public transport and biking really don't agree with his back, so it's a must.
The increased weight has been explained from evolutionary biology and epigenetics point of view. In the past, the people whose metabolism allowed them to survive starvation (slower metabolisms that cope better with starvation) were the ones who went on to survive times of prolonged famine, which were regular and frequent occurrences. Most such people become overweight in times of plenty, and they need much more exercise and calorie control to maintain the 'normal weight'. Likewise, it's been shown that metabolism is determined two generations prior, so many people whose grandparents went through starvation have these 'energy conserving' metabolisms. Also, mothers who diet during pregnancy condition foetus' metabolism to prepare for scarce resources, giving rise to the same outcome. Also, they showed genetic predisposition for the number of fat cells we are born with, and formula fed babies have been shown to be heavier as adults than breast fed babies. When you add all that up, with the fact that in most of developed and developing world there hasn't been a serious famine in almost a century, and combine it with these extremely high calorie foods (sugary drinks and junk food) it's easy to see why there's an epidemic of obesity. But not one of those things works in isolation, the genetic and epigenetic factors need to be present in order for a person to be able to reach the kind of weight that will reduce mobility. Contrary to the popular belief, a lot of people simply can't get to 'normal' weight no matter how hard they try. This is the main reason why diet's don't work. We have genetically and epigenetically predetermined weight which can be influenced to a fairly small degree with diet and exercise, the rest is forceful and doesn't last, except if the person devotes their entire lives to maintaining their unnatural but socially acceptable weight. What we need to ask ourselves is, do we really have the right to demand that of people, purely because we don't like the look of them? And before anyone starts on health costs, compare it (loads of studies already did) to stress-related illnesses, smoking-related illnesses, car accidents, sports injuries etc, and you'll see that economically, it makes no sense to separate the overweight from any other group that'll require health care at some point. Back to the fat friend, they are eating the same amount of calories as their thin friend, exercise the same, and they still are 20 kg heavier. If the war came, the thin friend would really struggle to survive whilst the originally overweight friend would be normal weight, fertile and healthy. But if famine doesn't come, the evolutionary purpose of weight conservation isn't immediately apparent, so the chubby are viewed as 'abnormal'. The only way for them to get 'thin enough' in the times of plenty, to stop the teasing, is to abuse their bodies in an unhealthy way with unhealthy diets, excessive exercise, surgery, pills, extreme self-berating that morphs into an eating disorder etc. And yet, most average weight people who also don't go to the gym and eat fish and chips most evenings, will point a finger at a chubby person and automatically assume that they are 'lazy' or that they 'don't care'. What astonishes me, though, is the ease with which such people dismiss any and every piece of information aimed to educate them and dispel their prejudice. I understand the dieting industry, they do it to increase their profits, put pressure on more people to buy their products, but why an average Jo or Jane Doe does it, when they don't get a dime one way or another, makes no sense. Other than visual enjoyment (we invented art after all) and perhaps more importantly, humans are fiercely competitive and they'll exploit any disadvantage to come out on top. Discrimination of fat people gives a thin person an easy 'win'. Same with men discriminating against women, people of one colour discriminating against those of different colour, straights discriminating against gays etc. However, the most bigoted ones usually have a bit of the hated in them, they are a bit gay for the neighbour or have a starving fatso inside waiting to get out, etcetera. Psychologically speaking, it's quite entertaining. It tells much more about the discriminator than discriminatee.
[MENTION=35110]jazzabel[/MENTION]: Interesting points, though I'm not sure if I really understand all that I know of a Swedish study that found a connection between cardiovascular diseases and famine though. Luckily, in many developed countries the majority of people are still slim and able to stay at a "normal" weight, especially if their energy consumption and burn is in balance. And a lot of people can get to "normal" weight, and are happy about the change they've made. Not based on the appearance, but in many cases (let's take that friend of mine again I mentioned earlier), they want to lose weight for health reasons and they want their overweight father to lose weight too, so that maybe, just maybe, he'd be around a little longer that way. This is also one reason why the average Joe and Jane meddle with other people's weight. It's not all about the looks, there're also health risks when it comes to e.g. large consumption of sugar.
[MENTION=53403]KaTrian[/MENTION]: I understand what you are saying, and of course you are right. However, 10-20 kg extra is quite different from 50 - 100 kg extra, and often people don't appreciate the difference. The problem is abusive behaviour that overweight people complain about (and skinny people, like I said in my previous comment, everything that deviates from the 'average' can be a target), not supportive behaviour of a friend asked to help one stay motivated, so I was only referring to the extremes. And if you look at obesity statistics, approaching 60% in some places, I am not sure I agree that 'most people' can achieve normal weight. If that was so, we wouldn't be facing the public health issue.
You may be poor right now, but you're a student. You can do budget arithmetic, you understand nutrition, you know how to cook, you can recognize a potato or a tomato. And you're not too poor to own a car. I'm not dismissing the accomplishments of budgeting and self-restraint that were likely required to allow you to own that car, but all the same, you do have one. "Recognize", you may ask re the above paragraph? I remember a TV show that showed some US schoolchildren who could not recognize the most basic items of produce, like a potato, and these schoolchildren were closer to middle class than poor. That scene may have been sensationalized, but it's certainly true that many US kids have no background or education or cooking skills to support healthy food choices, resulting in many US adults who are the same way. And I remember reading that it can be quite difficult to get your hands on fruits and vegetables if you live in a poor urban area, and the ones you can get your hands on can be pretty expensive. I think that this was in the context of a rolling vegetabe market, a sort of "vegetable bookmobile" intended to bring the opportunity to purchase vegetables to people in such areas. On the other hand, calories in the form of burgers, fries, peanut butter, white bread, soda, and so on, are cheap and easy to obtain pretty much anywhere. If your choice is taking a bus a long way (and paying bus fare) to haul home heavy bags of expensive unfamiliar fresh food that you never learned how to cook that will last a few days before you have to take that bus again, or spending a fraction of the time and cost on fattening unhealthy food that you're used to that tastes better to you... what are the odds? Especially if you're working two jobs just to pay the rent and the credit card bills that were racked up the last time the kids needed medical care? So I would never condemn the US poor for being overweight. I have no excuse; I think that they have ample excuse.
That is said a lot, but I don't think it is entirely true. I tried it, just to see how cheaply I could eat healthy here in California, where things aren't that cheap to begin with. For five days of healthy food I prepared for myself at home, I spent under just under $25. If I'd used the dollar menu at McDonald's three times a day for five days I could probably have come in under that, but not by much.
Yes, I think these other factors more than the cost of the food itself are more significant. Convenience, ease when dealing with difficult schedules, and so on.
Well, currently normal is when BMI is between 22 and 26, but different places move that a little bit to the left or right. Generally, we don't worry too much as long as BMI isn't much below 20 or above 30 (unless there's chronic illness that can benefit from weight loss or weight gain if you're underweight). BMI is calculated by dividing weight in kilograms with height in metres squared.
I agree, but when I talk about processed food, I mean the stuff you buy in supermarkets. For a big family where a parent (or two) is working on minimum wage, the quickest way to prepare a meal (they think) is to buy the ready-made crap. You can get a huge lasagne for not much money that will feed all your kids, but nutritionally it is not that great. It doesn't take much more time to prepare a meal (apart from lasagne, which does take a long time to prepare!) from scratch for one person, but mulitply that by 4,5 or 6 and it starts to take longer and cost more. If you have limited time and budget and kids who are hungary and demand to be fed NOW! you go for the quickest, cheepest option. Not necessarily the healthiest.
A carton of whole organic milk here costs ~$4.00. Decent quality steak, depending on how savvy a shopper you are, $7-$14.00 per pound. At a normal store, buying a few good tomatoes will cost you several bucks, to give you an idea. Now, if you're young and with a family, maybe you got time to drive to five different super markets a week, to get good quality stuff at more reasonable prices (that's how supermarkets work here, they all have that ONE thing to lure you in). If you got a family and a full time job, you're going to one supermarket once a week. Now, my evidence is only anecdotal. But you're more likely to find lower income people buying pop tarts, big bottles of soda, cheap hot dog and hamburger meat, potato chips, etc. Higher income people are going to have hummus, good quality bread, organic, grade A meats, olives, all the awesome food out there that makes you realize eating wholesome and healthy is actually a whole lot more fun than eating cheap junk. It gets worse. If you're a poor child, guess what you're more likely to be doing every weekend and night? Watching the tube or maybe going to the movies. Rich parents? Well, now we're talking about ski trips, horse back riding lessons, sailing lessons, hiking, trips to the beach, you get the idea. It's a fallacy that living an unhealthy, sedentary life is somehow hedonistic and gluttonous. The best things in life are not only good for you, they are more enjoyable. Unfortunately, economic disparity plays a large role into which category you're going to fit in. Now, I'm just describing one existing trend. Obviously there are plenty of exceptions, here.
[MENTION=35110]jazzabel[/MENTION] - Right. I feel most people posting on this thread know something about BMI, but like IronPalm stated, average BMI can increase without any indication of obesity. I would have to lose 35 lbs to have a "normal" BMI. However, a man having a normal BMI and average body fat percentage is not a ripped up Adonis as pictured previously. Those physiques are defined as awesome exceptions on the healthier side of the equation. I don't think it takes mass media influence to tell us what is healthy and what is just fat. I believe there is an ingrained prejudice based on evolution against obesity. Obesity is defined by an excess amount of body fat that has a negative effect on health.
Good food is pretty cheap in SoCal.... How the hell does it cost you under $25 for $5 days of food prepared at home? Usually costs me >$70...
