Alright, this post was inspired by the discussion about "intuitive eating".

Ok, so 70% of residents of the United States are overweight or obese now. Mexico is similar, and although other industrialized nations are lower, they also have a significant problem.

This statistic is derived from BMI tables, which are frequently inaccurate. The following study shows what I mean. Keep in mind it is looking at obesity, not overweight.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0033308

Quote

BMI characterized 26% of the subjects as obese, while DXA indicated that 64% of them were obese.

Ok, so if you look at the fun graph (that I stole from some skinny skater) the lines show obesity. If the BMI line were moved to 25, then the picture becomes more clear. Basically, guys can be "power lifters", when women aren't, and women can be "skinny fat", when guys aren't. (Rare exceptions)

What that means, is there is a higher percentage of over-fat women than the statistics show, and fewer men. In the end, I dunno, it may not change the total.

While I'm talking about this chart, what strikes me is how little weight has to do with body fat percentage for women. Some of these women have a 22BMI, but are still 40% fat! There is no BMI that a woman can aim for and be "safe" (maybe under 21?). A guy, on the other hand, if he has a BMI of 25 or less, is almost guaranteed to not be overfat.

Ok, so that is all really interesting, but what's the point?

Well, back to what I was talking about.. the idea of "intuitive eating".

I think our whole country is like a fishbowl, and we're little fishes swimming around in it. If you are a fish in a fishbowl, you'll be wet, right? But what if there was something wrong with the water? Everyone would be wet and have something wrong. How can you swim around in your little fishbowl and NOT get wet and NOT have something wrong? You'd have to don a waterproof space-suit type thingy, right? Then you are insulated against the poison water and do your own thing.

THIS is why there are so many diets, nutrition plans, intuitive eating, organic, gluten free, keto, low fat, high fat, low carb, high starch.. etc. etc.

Everyone is trying to don a spacesuit to escape whatever the heck is going on in that bowl!!! The spacesuit salesmen all are touting how wonderful their spacesuits are, and how you'll be dryer than your buddy, and have greater freedom of movement... etc. etc. ... you get the point.

I don't know what's wrong with the "water", but there is definitely something wrong. We are all on this board because we are going the "seal one gill up with superglue" route. At first, breathing in the toxins through one gill only gives us half the poison. Cool! But we're still breathing poison, and it will catch up with us eventually if we don't make other changes.

What do y'all think? Is there something systemically wrong with our country (western civilization)?

Read the revised addition of The China Study.

There are a ton of good insights in that book.

Thanks for an insightful post...

Most experts cite the late 1970s/early 1980s era as the start of the modern day obesity epidemic in the US. Prior to 1977, the vast majority of people were normal weight.

What changed in the late 70s/early 80s?

1. Health authorities urged us to adopt low-fat dietary practices. Before 1977, typical Americans ate more than 40 percent of calories from fat. Today people eat about 30 percent of calories from fat.
2. Due to low-fat recommendations, healthy fats in peoples' diets were displaced with processed carbs and unhealthy fat (read: margarine, shortening, industrial vegetable oil).
3. Society changed due to the shift away from agrarian living and, later, the shift away from industrialization. Not as many people work in labor-intensive jobs in farming, ranching, factory production lines, construction, etc. We now live in an information-based society where many people earn their incomes while seated behind a desk.
4. More people than ever sit on their asses while entertaining themselves behind some type of device screen: smartphones, tablets, computers, TV, gaming...you name it. Entertainment involved purposeful movement and actually doing something in past generations.

Yes, my observations are unscientific, but the cold hard statistics point to a rise in obesity, type 2 diabetes and other lifestyle diseases soon after the late 70s/early 80s.

I think my anecdotal observations are at least somewhat valid.

Edited October 20, 20178 yr by Introversion

4 minutes ago, Introversion said:

.

Edited October 20, 20178 yr by Introversion

Here is a neat website. You can click on different foods and see how consumption has changed over time. Keep in mind the US population has almost doubled since 1960. (It was 179m, and is now 308m). So only numbers that more than double are significant. And any decrease is really significant! Lol.

http://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?country=us&commodity=butter&graph=domestic-consumption

38 minutes ago, Berry78 said:

Dammit Janet!!! So wait. You mean we DIDN'T get fat from eating too many fruits and veggies? Nice charts/graphs. On a more serious note, though, the whole concept of BMI is a flawed. We're being told what "fat" is and how it applies to our genders/populations. But, do we know that it's abnormal for women to be by their definition skinny/fat? Doesn't that help contribute to fertility? During famines where women's body weights drop below certain fat%, then amenhorrea (sp?) ensues...amenhorrea=infertile=no babies=destruction of the species...

Quote

However, women in the study with excess body fat had a 57 percent higher chance of dying from heart-related causes within 11 years of their assessments, compared to women with a healthy amount of body fat.

High body fat was defined as levels above 25 percent for men and above 35 percent among women.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-body-fat/body-fat-tied-to-heart-risks-in-normal-weight-adults-idUSBRE98P12820130926

Some amount of body fat is good for women, but too much is... too much.

I only have anecdotal speculations as well. Introversion has some valid points and then there is the adulteration of the food supply issues - super feeding and hormones to make animals fat faster. Sedentary life/jobs. It is probably all of it.

Our portions have increased. Dinner plates in the 50's were only 10", we didn't snack endlessly, we ate out rarely and it wasn't mainly fast food - those drive-in eateries were a seasonal venture in many places. We ate 3 squares a day and maybe one treat/snack and it wasn't endless junk. We rode bikes and horses and raked leaves and walked that lawn mower around the yard ad shoveled the snow. (I'm not giving up my snow blower).

Full fat dairy did not kill us. Our beef was not as adulterated by hormones nor entirely cornfed. It was in the 80's when 'food science' really started.

You know what?

I found an interesting graph that looks like heart disease started ballooning from 1900 until 1980, then it started going back down. So whatever we did prior to 1900 must have been the best thing ever, right?

...

Possibly, but it's hard to tell because before 1900, the life expectancy was only like 38 years old. People didn't live long enough to develop heart disease.

What is more interesting is why we are living longer now, but heart disease started declining in 1980...

Check out that last graph...

5 minutes ago, Berry78 said:

What is more interesting is why we are living longer now, but heart disease started declining in 1980...

Probably because people started to realize how bad smoking was for their health.

There have been a lot of medical advances, but just because we live longer doesn't mean we are healthy and enjoying life. I want to be that 90 year old who is still driving herself to church.. or running around the block..lol

Hygeine is one of the main reasons we live longer, and uncontaminated water and indoor plumbing. Also education about caring for wounds and antibiotics and containing the spread of disease. Food is more available. Now having all that is great but there are currently viruses and bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics from overuse and use in the food chain. Plus global mobility makes spreading those last two much easier now. We are nearing a time when epidemics could once again happen.