re: NYT: American Adults Just Keep Getting Fatter

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All you people who talk condescendingly about fatties and sugar addicts, and brag about your keto diets and workouts.... you're all a bunch of douchebags.

I hope the extra 3-5 years you gain in old age by denying yourself the enjoyment of something as basic as food is all you hope it will be.

I'll take a McGriddle, ma'am.

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I had Mexican food last night and chips and salsa. But I also went to the gym before and didn't suck 4 mountain dews down with it. This isn't that complicated.

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I've always been suspicious of BMI. For someone who's 6'1, the chart indicates a healthy range between 140 and 185 lbs.

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That's not far off. People are just so fat that now just a little fat is viewed as normal and the correct weight is viewed as too thin

Imo, the issue of obesity is not that people dont know how to eat healthy. The main issue is people who eat extremely unhealthy all the time, yet don't seem to care at all.

I think there are 3 different type of eaters in the world.

1. Healthy eaters. (These are your nutrition/fit freaks. They count calories, study labels, meal prep, etc. They dont know the last time they've had A slice of pizza or cheeseburger.)
2. Moderate ( People who know how to eat healthy and normally will. But they also eat things that may not be the best at times. Won't lose alot of weight. But as long as you follow some sort of moderate workout plan, you won't really gain any either)
3. Unhealthy pigs (these are the folks whose idea of a salad is getting extra lettuce and tomatoes on their big mac. They will literally go to a fast good restaraunt 5 times out the week. Maybe more. And will still find time to snack on chips or ice cream throughout the day. These are the real obese people. They are the problem.)

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That's not far off. People are just so fat that now just a little fat is viewed as normal and the correct weight is viewed as too thin

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Yep. Even health professionals seem to have a clouded view on weight and health.

I’m 5’7 168 pounds. I very obviously need to lose about 25 pounds, but every year my health screening comes back with a gold star rating, which means I’m in the upper tier of health.

Whenever I mention losing weight, I get comments from people about how I’d be too thin.

People need to learn that unless you’re a woman with sizable breasts, nothing should jiggle on your body.

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Do you disagree with the overall point though that this country is extremely unhealthy? Whatever your methodology used, the same general result will be achieved in this study.

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I do not disagree with the overall point of this study. I believe that people are increasingly unhealthy. I agree whatever method used is likely to reach the same conclusions.

I disagree with using BMI as an indicator of health, for the following reasons.

(1) Since the line between the overweight/normal categories is not representative of 20th or 21st century life, the medical profession ignores that category completely - and really only starts doing stuff at the "obese" mark. This really does obscure health risks of someone who has the low muscle mass at the clinical level.

(2) These same categories are used over and over again in research with the same cutoffs, which I believe dilutes some results pretty heavily. Health risks of visibly obese people are masked by people in the 30-31 BMI range who (while probably overweight), are not harboring an excessive amount of visceral fat which is a closer indicator of all cause-mortality.

(3) There is also some research showing cardio fitness to be a better predictor of health than weight. However, due to the "ease" of the BMI chart in clinical purposes - the only aspects of cardio health that are tested are BP and pulse (skewed by whatever stress is caused by being in a doctors office). If we're all paying out the yang for health insurance, why wouldn't something like a VO2 max test be part of our routine checkup?

All this just helps fatty justify being fatty. They can say "My friend was 190 lbs and died of a heart attack, I'm just going to keep eating"

I think the correct thing to do would be take the data from all-cause mortality now, and do several things.

(1) Reverse engineer the cutoffs on the BMI chart from morality data to a level that is consistent with step-changes or inflections in all cause mortality rate. This may just be shifting the line 1-2 more of the right (6'0" becomes obese at 240lbs instead of 220, and overweight at anything over 200lbs instead of 184).

(2) At a minimum, add waist circumference to the standard battery of measurements you get at the doctors office.

(3) Ideally, add a live cardio health check to the battery of tests on a routine check up. The 190lb guy who died of a heart attack can likely be identified if walking at a 4.0 on a treadmill gets them to 85% max heart rate - regardless of weight.

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A McGriddle is only 500 calories

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Hash brown is 150 more.

Small OJ or soda is another 150.

So 800 calories for breakfast. That’s absurd for the amount of food you get.

Maybe fat shaming should become a cool thing to do

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And 800 calories still isn’t a huge meal IMO. Granted I’m a long distance runner and eat nearly 3000 calories a day, but a average sedentary male should eat around 2000 calories a day. 800 calorie breakfast still leaves 1200 calories for the rest of the day

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Then they get 1400 calories worth of cains for lunch so they're already at 2200 before the inevitable snack and then shitty dinner.

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You added those other items not the person who mentioned McGriddles.

And 800 calories still isn’t a huge meal IMO. Granted I’m a long distance runner and eat nearly 3000 calories a day, but a average sedentary male should eat around 2000 calories a day. 800 calorie breakfast still leaves 1200 calories for the rest of the day.

Point is, single food choices aren’t the enemy. The persistent eating of high calorie foods all day long is the problem.

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800 cal breakfast is a lot of calories dude. That's about what I eat and I'm currently bulking.