Fat and High
Two data points got my attention today.
1. Americans are fatter -- way fatter -- than they were in 1995. Back then, every single state had an obesity rate lower than 20%.
Today, every single state but one has an obesity rate above 20%. (That's Colorado, by the way.)
Rates in a dozen states, mostly in the South, now top 30 percent. Mississippi won the dubious distinction of fattest state for the seventh year in a row, with 34.4 percent of residents meeting the criteria for obesity.
Obesity is defined by a weight-to-height ratio, called the body mass index. Indexes above 30 have been linked to myriad health problems, including diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and even some kinds of cancer. A 5-foot-8-inch person who weighs 200 pounds has a BMI of 30.
A mere two decades ago, America’s obesity landscape was much different: Less than 15 percent of residents in every state were obese. Since then, rates have swelled as much as 90 percent in some parts of the country.
2. Fatty foods can get you high. From the Independent:
Fatty foods trigger the body to produce a natural feel-good chemical similar to the effect of marijuana, which encourages overeating, US researchers report July 4.
A new study set to be published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) found that chemicals called "endocannabinoids" produce a drug-like feeling that can drive you to gorge on fatty foods such as chips and fries. In the study, researchers noted that sugary or high-protein foods did not have this effect.
"This is the first demonstration that endocannabinoid signaling in the gut plays an important role in regulating fat intake," study researcher Daniele Piomelli, a professor of pharmacology at the University of California, Irvine, said in a statement.
These things are probably related. I know they are with me. And now I know why. I just love to party.
With doughnuts.
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Comments :
May '10
Re: Fat and High
Southern cooking is delicious. But, oh man, cooking with bacon grease is going to get you in the end (literally and figuratively.)
Jun '10
Re: Fat and High
Yeah, forget the doughnuts. Bacon is my party drug.
And when I read that article this morning I was proud to see NJ was one of the lightweight states. After spending a beach day down at Sandy Hook recently I have to question that ranking.....both my husband and I were shocked at the size of some sunbathers. I never remember people being that large when I was a kid. I'm talking so big that they had difficulty walking. This is one of those public health scares that seems valid to me.
Aug '10
Re: Fat and High
Sugar is also apparently a drug, monkeying with your dopamine and opioid receptors like, ah, heroin.
So donuts are a double-whammy.
What about clafoutis?
Jan '11
Re: Fat and High
How's this for heart stopping:
Turtle Burgers
Handmade ground beef patties, topped with sharp cheddar cheese, wrapped ina bacon weave, then the next step, add hot-dogs as the heads, legs withslits for toes and tail. Next step. Place on an oven rack, coveredl oosely with foil and baked for 20-30 minutes at 400 degrees. A little crispy, not too crunchy...just how a turtle should be, no?
(sorry can't figure out how to post the photo. . .)
Jun '10
Re: Fat and High
Yes, another public health crisis that is quite real is the rise in venereal diseases.
Dec '10
Re: Fat and High
May I present the Bacon Explosion! Mmmm, bacon.
Aug '10
Re: Fat and High
I had no idea that the increase in obesity rates was such a new phenomenon. For rates to jump like that since 1995 does, indeed, seem like something different happened.
So what changed?
Surely not the stuff that people eat.
Americans have long enjoyed high-fat, large-portion, meat-cheese-sugar-salt laden diets. I've seen no evidence that Americans suddenly changed their diets around 1995.
So what happened in 1995 that was really, really big?
The answer, my friends, was the release of Windows 95.
Before Win95, computers were for geeks and nerds. DOS was too difficult for most, and Macintosh was too expensive.
Only after Windows 95 did desktop computers became ubiquitous for nearly every single worker and every single home, because it finally brought a user-friendly GUI and plug-and-play peripherals to computers priced under $1000.
Now, it's true that the graphical Internet came along at the same time, with the Mosaic browser for UNIX and Macintosh in 1993. But the graphical Internet could not really take off until Windows 95 made desktop computing ubiquitous for the masses.
So, instead of blaming Dunkin' Donuts and McDonalds, the obesity police should instead blame Microsoft.
Edited on Jul 8, 2011 at 1:57pmJul '10
Re: Fat and High
Misthiocracy:
Rather, she should blame Microsoft. · Jul 8 at 1:28pm
Yeah, Microsoft has made Us Macrosoft.
Sep '10
Re: Fat and High
Its what people eat combined with a sedentary lifestyle. Corn feed is used to fatten animals and I think its safe to say that corn and corn derivatives (I include cornstarch and cornsyrup) make up 60% of some people's diets.
The sad truth is that eating healthy is more expensive than eating lousy. So, if you're poor, you can fatten your wallet by fattening your waistline.
Edited on Jul 8, 2011 at 2:37pmMay '10
Re: Fat and High
Well, Rob, call me a party girl. I hope someday you'll find the best doughnut in Mississippi. Talk about a trip... Speaking of food consumption, did Ann Coulter actually eat food at your dinner party? She is so amazingly slender.
Re: Fat and High
I'm suspicious of the BMI thing, though. Last year my BMI said I was close to being overweight. By the time I got it down to normal BMI people I hadn't seen in a while thought I had spent laid up for three months with beri-beri.
Jul '10
Re: Fat and High
There are lots of morbidly obese folks, Sticker. But I fail to see how it constitutes a public health issue. I can see the issue with say, second-hand smoke (even though I think it's overblown) but obesity as contagion seems like about five stretches too far.
Rob Long:
Indexes above 30 have been linked to myriad health problems, including diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and even some kinds of cancer. A 5-foot-8-inch person who weighs 200 pounds has a BMI of 30.
That seems like a ludicrously low threshold to me.
Sounds like any stocky guy is obese.
Jul '10
Re: Fat and High
StickerShock
Yes, another public health crisis that is quite real is the rise in venereal diseases. · Jul 8 at 1:25pm
That's my nominee for line of the week.
Aug '10
Re: Fat and High
StickerShock
Yes, another public health crisis that is quite real is the rise in venereal diseases. · Jul 8 at 1:25pm
Oh dear. Rob just served Ann Coulter clafoutis for dessert.
Scandalous.
Re: Fat and High
Ouch. The clafloutis references make me seem like a dealer. But if it's any consolation, I'm a dealer and a user.
Aug '10
Re: Fat and High
BMI is easy to measure, but not the most accurate measurement, since it doesn't differentiate between fat and muscle.
A friend of mine in high school had an "overweight" BMI at the same time she had dangerously low body fat percentage. (She was a competitive show-jumper -- dunno if that's an explanation.)
As for me, at the same BMI I can be either fit or flabby depending, basically, on the exercise I get.
Oct '10
Re: Fat and High
The Body Mass Index (BMI) assumes that humans are cylindrical and that they are made of uniform government-defined goo which has the mean density of the General Population. Champion athletes in all sports will tend to have BMI by this measure which scores them anywhere from overweight to morbidly obese. This is because muscle tissue is more dense than fat, and individuals with outlier muscle mass fractions will have a high BMI with the simplistic formula used to calculate it.
It is relatively easy to actually measure muscle and fat fraction, if you're worried about it. Still, if you have a BMI of 30 or more and aren't a body builder, Tour de France competitor, or NFL lineman, you probably ought to watch what you eat.
Dec '10
Re: Fat and High
Palaeologus...There are lots of morbidly obese folks, Sticker. But I fail to see how it constitutes a public health issue....
I have a friend that is an S-corporation businessman that can't get health insurance at what he considers a reasonable cost. He is 5' 8" and 260 pounds, plus somewhat diabetic. Last week he said to me, "Now, with this no exclusion for pre-existing conditions, I can get insurance, if you [expletive] Republicans don't take it away". It is very much a public health issue when the costs for being rotund get shifted onto the public.
Edited on Jul 9, 2011 at 1:00amOct '10
Re: Fat and High
Now, having writ about BMI, on to the gnarlier part of the original post.
Last month I visited the U.S. for 18 days—the first time since 2006. The phrase which kept popping into my mind whilst observing Americans in their native habitat was “metabolic syndrome”: many of these people are for, whatever reason, eating in such a way so far out of balance with their energy expenditure that they're putting themselves at risk of a long list of late-onset diseases which are entirely preventable. When I see their children set on the same path, it just makes me sad.
Then I visited a U.S. supermarket. I am about the farthest thing from a food fanatic you can imagine, but I would consider about 25% of what was for sale there as food I would consider eating. Back when I lived in the U.S. (before 1991), I would put this at around 80%.
(Full disclosure: I am the author of a diet book which argues that it doesn't matter in the least what you eat, but then I've since revised my opinion.)
Aug '10
Re: Fat and High
Yes, but doesn't every health problem become more-or-less a public health issue when its costs are shifted onto the public?
Obesity, like smoking, is simply a prominent (and easily-mocked) example.