Walking through the Denver airport, and seeing who lines up at what gates is startling.
In reverse, lining up for Denver from say, Houston.
How does your 20% compare to other nations?
It varies
I’m really surprised Georgia is not darker red.
Well obesity according to what metric? The notoriously outdated and inaccurate BMI?
BMI is honestly a terrible tool for individuals, (meh but I get it for larger societal groups). Everything on me is bigger than average. Size 14 US shoe, size 3x helmets. 2x gloves. My wingspan is significantly wider than I am tall (6’5" vs 5’10"). Even my bones are far wider than average. I’m no bodybuilder but I hike extremely steep hikes for fun and at least my ass and thighs have a bit of muscle.
My weight has varied over the years but even when I’m so thin I’m constantly getting questions of, “Are you alright? You’re way too thin.” I’m still just into the overweight category. For me to get to a "healthy"BMI I’d have to be sickly thin. So I just take care of what I think makes me healthy. And at 51 my only medication is a Zyrtec every day but I’m still technically solidly overweight.
That’s my point. According to BMI, the likes of Dwayne Johnson are obese so that’s why it’s worth asking what standard of obesity the graph is referencing.
If BMI is bad for measuring individual health, why would it be at all good for measuring a large population?
Coding data in color is a pet-peeve of mine. As a colorblind person, maps like this are nearly useless to me.
Don’t worry, this particular map is just as useless for everyone.
There is an ISO somewhere that sets out color blind colors for accessibility.
Dark = bad
The first 2 on the legend look darker than the following 3 .
I agree with the zombiepirate. Colour coded maps are useless for about 25% of the population.
Simulated red/green colorblind (the most common one). Dark = bad sorta works but not all the way.
I first got this realization when I started using grey scale mode for my phone at night. A “good to bad” scale in an app became unintelligible. Since then I try to consider colorblindness if I design stuff myself. It’s fantastic if color scales carry meaning in both their colour but also the same meaning in their lightness, so everyone can understand them the same.
This is how I see the map. Didn’t notice CO was green until a comment mentioned it.
That’s cause red and green both look like puke green to people with the most common type of colorblindness.
it’s really just a Gameboy huh
If a GameBoy could reproduce shades of blue and yellow too, then yeah, like a GameBoy.
The green is almost exactly the same in value as the red or orange, whatever that color is.
If it helps, Washington D.C. and Colorado are the only “green” ones.
I don’t see anything represented by the “<20%”, “45%-50%” or “50%+” colors. Not sure why they’re even included.
Thanks, I could kind of tell CO by comparing to those around it, but that’s not an option the way DC is presented.
The green doesn’t follow that.
Is it possible they’re expressing admiration or paying you a compliment and not trying to invoke your smirking condescension?
Incidentally, according to the most recent CDC numbers, Colorado is no longer “green” on this map, just Hawaii and DC.
There’s only eight states under 30%. West Virgina tops the numbers at 41%.
~75% of the United States is classified as overweight or obese, which is staggering. It has to be pretty unevenly distributed even within states, because I live in a college town in a low-middle-weight state, and very few appear obese, and I’m regularly in a nearby major metro, and I don’t see a ton of obese people there either. Rural children are 10-15 times more likely to obese, so I’m guessing that is probably a major factor as well.
25-35% obesity rates covers like 80% of states, so the US is just fat and getting fatter.
I think the main problem is that people are eating way to much sugar and salt. The problem is that a lot food you can buy at the store has way to much sugar and salt. Also some people have grown up being conditioned to eat junk like heavy sugar and grease.
Do you have any source for salt casing obesity? I’ve never heard of that being a thing.
It doesn’t cause obesity to my knowledge. It does cause heart disease and blocks circulation.
When I say salt I also mean cholesterol and saturated fat
Is it getting fatter, though? Modern obesity drugs have got to be making a dent now.
Well for the wealthy, sure. Can’t ever stop taking your drugs to fix your life and need the funds to do it.
The new semiglutide drugs have only been on the market since about 2019, and in the best cases members in the study only lost up to 30% bodyweight (and real world data that’s been trickling in is even less, topping out at around 15-20%) so for someone who needs to halve their weight it’s only getting them part of the way there.
Additionally they work by mucking with one’s metabolism so the patient wouldn’t feel hungry. That only helps people who are overweight due to overeating. Tons of people have undiagnosed health issues that muck with their weight, and we all know the systemic challenges related to healthcare access and access to diagnosis and treatment, especially with how doctors tend to treat to patients who are minorities, female, overweight or any combination of the above.
Also most patients are not able to keep the weight off after stopping semiglutide treatment, even in studies where participants were simultaneously given personalized diet and exercise guidance and switched to a placebo treatment, as soon as treatment was stopped the weight returned.
These new semiglutide treatments are incredible and are allowing people to lose weight more successfully and more effectively than they might have ever been able to, but they aren’t the entire solution to the obesity epidemic.
If you want to learn more, I highly recommend this episode of the Maintenance Phase podcast for more details (transcript and sources also available!)
I’d expect a county map to more appropriately show the trend. Coastal cities can steamroll stats for a state with vastly disproportional representation. I would expect cities to have lower obesity rates due to increased travel by walking while deep rural counties to have higher rates due to driving everywhere, including on your own property. Perhaps it’s not California and New York that’s doing the right thing, but rather LA and NYC doing the heavy lifting. A county map could also pull in variation correlated to ethnicity of people (genetics, imported cultural norms) and ethnicity/variety of food available, too (can you get fresh fare or is it all McDonald’s?). I would expect DC to be more in line with other large metro counties.
Basically the same issues with the electoral college. States are big and not necessarily a good representation of human statistics. Counties may not be granular enough, but I expect it to be an improvement. I’m not seeing date marked results past 2008.
I have no relevant comments for Colorado, I don’t get it
Agreed. A more granular map would be interesting to see. I mean, something like 65% of NY state’s population live in the NYC metro, which is a tiny part of a deceptively large state.
Re: Colorado, it’s just a relatively healthy state with a general ethos of living well. I think you’re seeing some of the urban effect through the Denver, Colorado Springs, etc. and the addition of rural areas of Colorado still having an outdoorsy culture, as well as (often) affluent rather than “rural poor.” Colorado has one of the lowest rural poverty rates in the United States.
And since Colorado would be in the 25-29.9 category now, it’s comparable to many states that also have comparable rural poverty rates. The fact that the states with the highest rural poverty also have the highest weights makes me assume obesity rates and poverty rates heavily overlap.
Edit: to the point, look at the county map for childhood obesity. You can literally point out almost every major city in the United States.
Unevenly distributed, but also statistical bias. Anywhere you go obese people are less likely to be out and about.
A good way to sample is a hospital or Dr office waiting room.
That be the inverse uneven distribution. You want somewhere everyone has to go, regardless of health
Pretty sure healthy and unhealthy people go to the doctors for check ups. In fact, healthy people might be more likely to go to their annual appointment.
An annual checkup is a blip in comparison to the frequency of visits by the unhealthy
I’m a red dot in Colorado. 😕
Be the change you want to see
Me too. Don’t sweat it. Develop a good personality. Enjoy your life.
Yeah, I’ve got a great in-person personality. Still can stand to lose some pounds.
Sorry, but when people complain about obesity and talk about how easy it is for them to be healthy, all I think about is my brother. He eats more than me and isn’t any more active than me, but hes borderline underweight and can’t keep weight on to save his life. YES, people don’t take care of themselves, I know, that’s not my point. At my most active, most healthy eating part of my life, the best shape I’ve ever been, I was still considered overweight, so forgive me for rolling my eyes at this.
Im not trying to be mean or anything, but how active and how healthy were you eating at that time?
I realize some people struggle more than others.
I’m mostly talking about the extreme obesity.
thats just big boned
Yeah, the skinniest couple I know eats candy and taco bell all day long (they’re approaching 30 so that teen metabolism is long gone). They’re not unusually active or anything, just thin. My husband is thin and has basically zero regard for his diet. Southern amounts of butter on everything. I’m much more careful than him, I enjoy plain veggies as snacks (as opposed to his pastries) and I’m ten pounds more than him at 7 inches shorter than him.
It’s not hard to stay skinny/lose weight while eating sugar/fast food. At one point I was doing intermittent fasting - I had 1 slice of cake a day and it was delicious. I just ate that slice and I lost weight.
I eat fast food a lot and people have this perception about me but the reality is I only usually eat one meal a day so overall I’m not overeating. Admittedly it’s terrible nutritionally but my living arrangement limits my options.
How closely does this match a heatmap for poverty levels?
An obese poor person really is a paradox!
It’s far more expensive to eat in a way that would make you fat, so maybe not poverty, but (nutrition) education levels would be a better correlation?
Home economics used to be an elective.
Sad to say, but I feel cooking is an essential, base skill that everyone should have at least a small grasp on, at least for their own wellbeing.
It’s amazing for me to consider that anyone could bake a loaf of bread in their kitchen in a few hours, and nobody, not even Musk could taste it, not even if he wanted to. It’s a sense of ownership and accomplishment, and you… won’t die of starvation, so it has that going for it too.
It’s amazing for me to consider that anyone could bake a loaf of bread in their kitchen in a few hours, and nobody, not even Musk could taste it, not even if he wanted to. It’s a sense of ownership and accomplishment, and you… won’t die of starvation, so it has that going for it too.
That’s such a wonderful perspective! And funny enough, I’ve got a loaf in the bread maker! 😂
The 1% can eat the most expensive steak ever produced, the most valuable cake ever baked, the most rare and exotic delicacy, but those shitheads ain’t having a LICK of this goddamn bread. It is exclusively, an experience for you and anyone you share it with and no one else. That is the big revelation to cooking. Every single dish is one of a kind if you treat it that way.
While ingredients for healthy food are cheaper that processed ready to made or fast food, the time and energy to cook is an expensive luxury that no everyone have.
Check out this Folding Ideas video, about food, class and the cost of cooking https://youtube.com/watch?v=V-a9VDIbZCU
Class and the cost of cooking?
I could hop on Amazon right now, find you a $30 range and a $7 toaster oven at a flea market. You can bake anything that fits into it.
If you have a home, a sink and a power outlet, you can cook, and I know a ton of you have that before you have your next Little Caesars, and if you can’t cook, you’re in luck as learning new skills is entirely free sans the time.
You’re so close. Time is a luxury. Time. Poor people are working multiple jobs. Time. Time. Time.
the time and energy to cook is an expensive luxury that no everyone have.
I would reject that statement on the basis that preparing a decent meal does NOT have to be time or energy intensive.
For example, you can make overnight oats with about 10 to 15 seconds of effort. It would be filling, healthy, cheaper than packaged cereal, and can be done with something that most people already have in their home or apartment (a fridge).
And with a visit to the thrift shop, you can get a rice cooker for like $10. And make all kinds of dishes without any effort at all.
There are so many “hacks” to make cooking quick and easy, that I’d say it’s more effort to always feel shitty because of a poor diet.
Good luck eating “overnight oats” everyday on dirty plates in a dirty kitchen, cause looks you don’t think cleaning is part of the food preparation process.
Good luck eating “overnight oats” everyday on dirty plates in a dirty kitchen
Goddamn, where are you eating your meals, bro?
Cleanup is SUPER EASY.
I don’t understand what everyone is doing to make food prep and cleanup such a nightmare, but it really doesn’t have to be difficult, unless you make it difficult.
Sounds like you’re not the one who cook or clean in your home.
Yes, I do, along with the grocery shopping. For a family of 4.
Since the pandemic, we really had to tighten up on our grocery budget, so we learned where to save money on food while making food prep easier (so we aren’t relying on convenience foods).
As an example, we were spending something like $15 to $20 per week on non-dairy milk. So, we just make that at home for pennies at a time. Takes <10 minutes to make a week’s worth, then we reuse the glass jars. No waste, no running to the store, no filler ingredients.
We do also make use of an instant pot and bread machine. Low effort, but high-quality food that’s cheap.
Food prep (and cleanup) is a skill that I hope everyone can take at least some time to learn. It carries through to the rest of your life, and you’ll have better health as a result.
Don’t get me wrong, we definitely still buy convenience and packaged food, but they aren’t the meal. Even as snacks, these foods are far too expensive to have all the time.
I love to cook and always have. When I was working 2 jobs (and some additional freelance/part time) to keep a roof over our heads, there was zero chance I had the time, money, and energy to cook. Living in a food desert, I would have to spend gas money I didn’t have to go to a proper store to buy things and that would eat about 50 minutes more of my already-sleep-deprived day. Don’t even get me started on when I lived out of a car for a while. And I’m fortunate that I even had the car. Public transit was terrible where I lived at the time and basically useless unless you want to spend 3-4 hours a day commuting. There were no sidewalks and multi-lane roads with high speed limits. The social safety net is also in terrible shape, moreso today than back then.
“Only $10” also shows how out-of-touch you can be for the real situation that people have, particularly in areas of the rust belt and coal mining areas where the employers frequently left. I also worked in worker’s comp in healthcare IT and let me tell you that people with lifelong problems from the mines frequently get denied care as the mines fight just about everything, so there are people who have a really rough time and need more care for their families which is still more time and money in places with few jobs left to go around. These people also don’t have the resources to “just move”, either. This doesn’t even go into the opioid epidemic that also is an issue from overprescription in those areas and other confounding factors.
there was zero chance I had the time, money, and energy to cook.
Friend, I don’t know why so many people believe that simply feeding yourself require a tremendous amount of time, money, or energy.
You can make a week’s worth of food, with little more than a few minutes to dump the ingredients in a rice cooker, slow cooker, or pressure cooker. When times are tough, and money is tight, this would be the most ideal way to do things.
Do food deserts exist? For sure. I completely understand that not everyone has access to unlimited amounts of food.
But the reality is, over 90% of the American population live within 15 minutes of a Walmart (with three quarters being within 5 minutes from one), and that’s if they don’t already have more than one grocery store in their area. If they live further, Walmart offers free shipping or very low cost shipping. And that’s just Walmart. Pick whatever grocery chain or even Amazon, and there really is no such thing as a food desert.
Please don’t diminish someone’s ability to really improve their life with very little effort. The worst thing we can do is convince people that they are powerless, when in fact, they have way more control over their dietary choices than they think.
rice cooker, slow cooker, or pressure cooker.
I literally had none of these at the time I mentioned. I had I think two pots and a frying pan.
over 90% of the American population live within 15 minutes of a Walmart (with three quarters being within 5 minutes from one)
Citation? I sure didn’t.
if they don’t already have more than one grocery store in their area.
We had one and that was anywhere close. Again, remember gas money and travel time were issues for me. Like every cent of gas and food money.
Please don’t diminish someone’s ability to really improve their life with very little effort
But it’s fine for you to tell the working poor to basically ‘git gud’ and find money to spend on things, places to spend it, and time to do so? Particularly the ones without vehicles? The ones who deal in cash and don’t have debit or credit cards to order online?
there really is no such thing as a food desert.
Again, there are people who do not have bank accounts or cannot regularly access them to spend money online and most places these days aren’t going to do CoD. This is also just misinformation.
"The consensus established at the NIH workshop was that food insecurity and unhealthy neighborhood food environments contribute to diet-related chronic diseases that worsen health disparities. Addressing these challenges would help tackle nutrition security, a growing priority for the USDA and other federal agencies [83]. Several factors, including social determinants of health such as employment, housing, and education, severely limit access to affordable, nutritious food among various racial/ethnic minority and rural populations. " from the conclusion/summary of https://ajcn.nutrition.org/article/S0002-9165(23)66352-X/fulltext which also mentions food deserts elsewhere in the work.
The worst thing we can do is convince people that they are powerless
Of course they’re not powerless, but your “solutions” are blind to just how shit the situation is. I’m telling you this as a very annoyed person who lived it. You’re telling people to come up with time, means, and money out of nowhere. “It’s just $10” is insulting to some people who are choosing between food and medicine or heat or electricity. You are saying to empower yet victim-blaming by saying they’re not doing enough.
I’m going to try to cover this quick, since my intention was not to get into a back-and-forth argument. Everyone’s situation is different, but my point is that improvement doesn’t require as much effort as you might think.
I literally had none of these at the time I mentioned. I had I think two pots and a frying pan.
I get that. You have to start somewhere. If a visit to a thrift shop for an almost free rice cooker is too much, work with the pots!
Citation?
Forbes posted the 15-minute figure back in 2013.
Walmart’s official number from 2019 uses miles: “Not only do we employ over one million people in the United States, but 90 percent of Americans live within ten miles of a Walmart store.” (source)
There are variations of this stat, depending on the year, but they clearly show that accessibility isn’t an issue. Look at a map of obesity rates and Walmart locations, and you’d never be able to argue that it’s about access to the store. If anything, the easy access to Walmart, coupled with uninformed food choices, and it’s probably a driving factor of obesity!
And that’s just Walmart… consider other stores, and you’ve probably got 99% of the population within a very close distance.
We had one and that was anywhere close. Again, remember gas money and travel time were issues for me. Like every cent of gas and food money.
I understand that. I’m not sure how far back we’re talking, but this is a non-issue with free shipping being offered. Also, keeping in mind that almost all the population has access to at least 1 large grocery store within close proximity to where they live. The obesity map in the OP isn’t looking at outliers.
Again, there are people who do not have bank accounts or cannot regularly access them to spend money online and most places these days aren’t going to do CoD. This is also just misinformation.
But it’s fine for you to tell the working poor to basically ‘git gud’ and find money to spend on things, places to spend it, and time to do so? Particularly the ones without vehicles? The ones who deal in cash and don’t have debit or credit cards to order online?
Really, people are still eating food, and they still have to get food from somewhere. That’s not really up for debate.
The unbanked population is very small (<10%), while obesity affects the majority of the population. Grocery stores accept cash.
I’m suggesting that simple changes can have a big impact. Even buying food from the dollar store doesn’t have to be unhealthy.
I don’t drive to get to the grocery store. I ride my bike or walk. It’s completely doable with minimal effort.
I’ve also used pre-paid cards and cash to buy groceries, so I don’t accept the excuse that lack of a credit card or even a bank account is preventing someone from buying food staples.
You’re telling people to come up with time, means, and money out of nowhere.
Sigh… not out of nowhere. I’m submitting that by reallocating time, means, and money, you can get to a BETTER place, probably with less effort and by using less money!
The hardest part is starting. Once someone abandons the bad habits they’ve picked up through their childhood and adult life, their relationship with food can improve, and they can save their money and health in the process.
My suggestion to anyone is, start with what you have.
If you can, visit a local thrift shop or join a “free stuff” group, and invest a little in some time/money savers: an inexpensive rice cooker, a pressure cooker (even a stove-top version), a large pot, or a slow cooker.). These can be found free or very cheap, and they will last many years. All or any of those items can save time AND money.
Focus on inexpensive staples: rice, dry beans, oats. These can offer healthy calories, are filling, and can be cooked in large batches very easily and with minimal effort.
Save on produce when possible: buy frozen fruits/vegetables rather than fresh. You can eat 100% of what you get, and there’s no risk of them going bad if you don’t consume them quickly enough. Buy in season, and if you can only afford bananas, go with them. Replacing soft drinks with something like V8 would be a massive upgrade.
Learn how to make “one pot” recipes, and change them up using different spices or seasonings (these are inexpensive, and add variety to your dishes).
If possible, learn how to make your own bread, pasta, non-dairy milk, snacks, or treats. These can take more effort if doing it by hand (invest in an inexpensive bread maker, blender, etc., if your goal is to save time, too), but they can save a ton of money. My $100 bread maker paid for itself in several months, and we’ve been saving on bread, pizza dough, and tortillas ever since.
Assuming you aren’t poor (fun fact: the CDC suggests that income level does not correlate to obesity in men and has only some impact on women), invest in more time/money saving appliances. That way, you can expand on your meal types and make it much easier to replace worse food options.
Learn better eating habits. Really, this is probably the biggest barrier preventing people from losing weight.
Stop eating in front of the TV or when you’re distracted.
Learn how to refocus emotional eating into something more productive.
Make meal prep something the entire family can get involved in (i.e have your kids or spouse pick out recipes to try).
View food as a means for fuel and nutrition. This doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy it, or that you can’t “junk out” once in a while, but give food the appropriate time and place.
As best as you can, don’t keep junk food in the home. Replace them with healthier versions, if possible.
Always try to have healthy convenience foods available to you (ideally, stuff you’ve made!).
Portion control. Yes, eat out of a small bowl or weigh food based on the appropriate portion sizes. Use a bowl, plate, mug that brings you joy. My family has dedicated items for each family member, and we find that this makes eating more like a ritual rather than a mindless activity.
Track your calories. This is a big one. You won’t be able to lose weight unless you know what you’re eating. If you’re unknowingly adding 1000 excess calories to your diet each day, you’ll never succeed. Tracking calories also gives you come accountability.
Find the time to move. Walk, bike, use a standing desk… whatever gets you UP and moving your body will improve your health and help lower your weight.
I could go on for days, but I hope that my point has been made: there are so many small things that anyone can do to improve their diet (and health). Sometimes, just knowing that a better life is possible can motivate you to start.
Highly processed, high sugar foods are generally less expensive.
Highly processed, high sugar foods are generally less expensive.
It may seem that way, but I’d love to have some examples.
FWIW, I do the grocery shopping in the home, and find that highly processed foods, for the amount you get, is far more expensive than real food.
It’s always funny to me to watch single people who have been skinny their entire life try to coach the world on how to be like them.
There is an entire world outside of your little shell, very few people will fit in to the narrow view of the world you have and those that do don’t need your advice, they already look and eat like you.
There are myriad luxuries that contribute to your, apparently quite successful lifestyle. Had you actually encountered the hardships you claim to be able to resolve with some fucking oats, you’d be able to grasp the true depths of how idiotic the suggestion is.
I congratulate you on your success, but please shut up. The poors are in no further need of out of touch advice, they get plenty.
You assume that I’ve been both skinny and well off, so I can’t speak to the topic?
Well, you’re wrong.
And the reality is, the MAJORITY of the population is dangerously overweight, so this isn’t a “some people can’t do what you do!” situation. There are SOLUTIONS, and they don’t have to be difficult or out of reach to anyone.
Why wouldn’t you want more people to be educated in nutrition? Why would you want poverty to be an excuse to not try? Give people a chance, man.
I’m eating shitty delivered food (including mcdonalds) and I am losing weight. The problem isn’t “bad food” it’s all about controlling calories intake. The only moment where that might not work is if you have some issues - hormonal imbalance or some sort of other illness. But if you eat less and can maintain / withstand that, you will lose weight.
The problem isn’t “bad food” it’s all about controlling calories intake.
Yup, that’s what I’ve always said.
Top athletes eat loads and loads and loads of highly processed, high calorie food… and they have low body fat and are at peak fitness.
That’s because they treat food a fuel, and if people are eating food (fuel) as if they were a competitive athlete, but spend their day in a chair, they’re going to get fat!
But in terms of cost, it’s way more expensive to be eating delivered food than to make basic recipes.
Yeah, for sure. The problem is cooking for one. If you are inexperienced, you tend to overcook and then you either waste that or eat the same thing for five days. Also picky eaters sometimes can’t eat the same thing two days in a row, let alone more. Buuut if you treat cooking as “a job” that pays more than ordering out (where you don’t pay with your time), then it is really worth it for sure.
The problem is cooking for one. If you are inexperienced, you tend to overcook and then you either waste that or eat the same thing for five days.
I honestly think it’s a shame that more people don’t learn how to prepare food, even if it’s just decent quality quick meals.
It’s a skill that everyone should know, not only to help save money, but to nourish the body without much effort.
Sure, if you like making extravagant meals, go for it! Cooking can be a hobby, too.
But so many meals can be made with less than 10 minutes of effort, and you can scale up the quantity to feed your entire family without adding more time and lowering the overall cost per portion.
It doesn’t mean extravagant, it means “a lot of food to eat”. I know how to cook. The intuition of how much I need to cook comes with more experience, but it means I’d need to go through months of me cooking too much and either throwing it away, or eating the same thing for a long time. When you cook for two or more, the dishes just disappear. You can skip a day, your partner will eat it though. So then you do, and suddenly four days worth of meals are gone.
The intuition of how much I need to cook comes with more experience, but it means I’d need to go through months of me cooking too much and either throwing it away, or eating the same thing for a long time.
I know exactly what you mean! Having raised kids, and now grandkids, this problem can come up often!
My only suggestion here (for anyone), is to make less than you think you can eat, and then have simple sides or snacks to cover any shortfalls. It’s far too easy to over prepare meals, so you do bring up a good point!
A part that complicates it is nutrition. Nutrients are related to food cravings, but if you don’t have access to food that has the nutrients your body is craving, you might eat other things in an attempt to satisfy that craving. But since they don’t contain what your body needs, the craving doesn’t go away, so the drive to eat more remains.
It’s like the difference between being satisfied and full. For the first one, your body decides it doesn’t need anything more and the desire to eat just isn’t urgent (comfort/habit eating can still be a thing though). When you’re full, it just means your stomach is full and you can’t eat more without discomfort. But once there’s room again, the hunger might return.
It was something I’d always notice with McDonald’s. One big Mac never felt like it was enough. I’d eat the food and then be disappointed because it was all gone but I still wanted to eat.
But a good meal with a variety of ingredients can satisfy even if the volume of food isn’t high. Like I’ve only tried fine dining once and went in to the 9 course meal expecting to need to stop for a burger or something afterwards because I knew the portions of each course would be tiny. I walked out of that restaurant with room in my belly but no desire to fill it with anything else.
It’s also why pregnancy cravings are so strong. The body needs more nutrients when building another body, plus the timing of accessing those nutrients is more important.
Junk food is cheap so there is a correlation. It isn’t a perfect match but it is close.
What is more interesting is looking at obesity by race.
Got it. So Colorado should be predominantly rich white people.
Oh hey wait look at that, 76% white and 10% immigrant labor. With a white poverty rate of only about 7.5% (1)
Actually the white population for the US is one of the highest.
21% of the state is also of Hispanic or Latino descent and growing, but yeah, predominantly white.
Colorado here. You nailed it. We got a lot of these unbearable “health is life” turds.
When I returned from Asia and landed in Denver I was shocked by how fat everyone is now. I swear I could’ve counted the number of obese people in East Asia on one hand but in the Denver airport I think it would be safe to say about 80% of the people there were noticeably obese. It certainly isn’t due to a lack of food in Asia, they practically force feed you in China.
Are you Asian? (Don’t feel pressured to answer this)
The reason I ask is that according to the CDC Asian obesity is almost non existent. I think this has to do with culture and racially motivated pressure. In the US there is a stereotype of Asians being perfect and smart. That actually comes from the time right after the US interment camps. The idea was that Asians coming out of the camps should be “good little Asians.” I wonder if the pressure put on Asians has to do with them not being overweight. I personally used to know an Asian kid in high school who was almost driven to suicide because all the teachers expected more from him because of his race. He was extremely ADHD but couldn’t get any help as he was told that Asians are smart.
I think that stereotype is also partially driven by immigration selection pressures: those that were able to immigrate would statistically skew towards higher income earners or those that have had higher education. The parents themselves are going to hold higher expectations of their kids due to their own achievements.
Sorry to hear about your friend. I’m not sure to what degree you knew him, but that’s horrible :(
I don’t have any dtata, but my manager is from China, and that’s what she always claimed. It’s not easy to emigrate from China, it’s not easy to pursue US immigration and naturalization, so there is a strong selection bias. Not necessarily smartest, but definitely the most driven people
It very much depends which gate you’re looking at. There are a whole lot of people flying through Denver to get somewhere else; not everyone in DIA is from Colorado. As someone from Denver, I can say for sure that the airport has a whole lot more fat people than you see out and about.
When people comment about my weight I just turn it back on them. I’m not anxious about my weight so it’s easy to just be like, “You look like you’re eating enough for both of us!”
The colour scheme exaggerates this a little bit. 20-some isn’t that different from 30-some.
Anecdotal story about Colorado.
I visited CO a couple of times a while ago for work. I was in my mid 30’s (2007) and fairly fit. I left Cincinnati Airport surrounded by overweight people all around me where I felt pretty good about myself. I arrived in Denver, and suddenly felt like I was on the less fit side of the spectrum.
It was VERY obvious the change. It was not something I noticed / thought about in Cincinnati, but it hit me like a ton of bricks when I landed in CO.
I’ve talked about that experience through the years. I have to watch what I eat, and work to be ‘as fit’ as I am, it definitely does not just come natural or anything remotely like. I drove around / hiked pretty much every moment I was not working and both trips were amazing. Such a beautiful state!
When I went to Japan in college for 2.5 months I felt kinda big (I was normal weight), but then my flight back home stopped in Texas and…WOW the absolute SHOCK. I felt like a twig. This was many years ago and I still remember it so clearly.
I got to experience Japan too, but I was even younger but 6’ tall. So my experience there was mostly around how I could see over everyone :)
I live in Japan and am overweight, though slowly dropping it. Two years ago, I went back for the first time in like 6+ years and was shocked and horrified at how huge people were.
When I moved to Colorado from the midwest in the 90’s, my weight started to drop. When I left Colorado for Arizona, my weight went back up.
Partly it was the food, but really it was the outdoor activities… if you wanted to hang with friends, you spent time outside. (Though restaurants seemed to have healthier options, there were just less restaurants overall so I ended up cooking more too)
Ya, the amount of people outside bicycling, hiking, rafting I saw out there was awesome!
I think there is a lot less of a sugar culture here. People drink water and seek fresh food. If people are seeking junk companies will serve junk. When the general population wants fresh healthy meals that is what companies will sell. In my experience many people in Colorado want healthier food which creates a demand.
I think it has to do with the population
in the '90s*
Arizona…
I was skinny when I lived in Boston, but blew up like a balloon when I moved to Arizona.
Time to add another hole to the Bible belt.
I’d like to see this on county level like voter maps.
Curious how cities and rural look compared to each other within a state, and how rural in low average states look across.
For example is LA just so skinny and populous it hides that rural California is as bad as rural Oklahoma?
You know the answer. Venn diagram is a circle.
