On Wednesday, a new study published in JAMA by researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle projected that by 2035, nearly half of all American adults, about 126 million individuals, will be living with obesity.

The study draws on data from more than 11 million participants via the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health and Nutrition Examination and Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, and from the independent Gallup Daily Survey.

The projections show a striking increase in the prevalence of obesity over the past few decades in the U.S. In 1990, only 19.3% of U.S. adults were obese, according to the study. That figure more than doubled to 42.5% by 2022, and is forecast to reach 46.9% by 2035.

  • rayyy@piefed.social
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    27 minutes ago

    Low quality, high carb food is profitable. Our western diet is built around a carb diet. While approximately half the population does fairly well, weight wise, the other half does not because their bodies preferentially store carb calories as fat. That said I struggled with my weight although I was very active. Due to health issues I switched to a low carb diet more like the one I grew up with - mostly protein, high fat ( good fats like fatty fish, nuts, butter, olive oil and coconut oil), and reasonable amounts of complex carbohydrates. Weigh came off without exercise or any other effort. BTW, the calories in, the calories out approach is just plain wrong. Carbs MAKE you hungry.
    You only have one shot at this life so why would you burden yourself lugging around 50 pounds, 100 pounds or more everywhere you go.

  • danc4498@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    “Living with obesity” is a funny way of putting it. I’m living with 3 cats and obesity.

  • Carnelian@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    Oh weird? Wasn’t there a huge headline recently that obesity rates had declined slightly for the first time in history?

    • atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works
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      26 minutes ago

      This might be the least informed comment I have ever seen online.

      Obesity in the US has far more to do with food quality and food availability than quantity consumed.

    • PMmeTrebuchets@lemmy.zip
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      3 hours ago

      On one hand, it literally is as easy as “eat less”. On the other, this is spoken like someone who’s never struggled with anything like this, and you sound like a real ass. Bc you’re right, it is as easy as “eat less”, but if that were easy, wouldn’t everyone be a healthy weight, then? Obesity wouldn’t even be a concept, if eating less was an easy thing to do.

      • IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works
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        3 hours ago

        “easy” is definitely not the word to use, since it’s clearly not easy. I think “Simple” is the better way to put it. Things can be simple, and yet extremely difficult.

      • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        Actually, eating less won’t work for a lot of people and you could easily end up doing more harm to your health than the obesity is doing if you push it far enough

        What you need to do is eat healthy and get regular physical activity to coax your body into metabolizing things like it should. Of course, healthy food and the space to exercise both cost money, so yeah - poverty is to social problems what boiling water is to generating energy.

        • IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works
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          3 hours ago

          Eating less will absolutely work for 100% of people. That’s just physics. The problem is adjusting timeframe expectations. If it took a lifetime to gain the weight, you’re not going to get rid of it with a couple months of dieting. Trying to go too fast is what causes the problem. It’s like never working out a day in your life, then trying to bench 500 lbs as your first ever lift; you’re going to hurt yourself.

        • Perspectivist@feddit.uk
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          31 minutes ago

          You can get fat eating healthy food too. It’s calories in and calories out. If you eat less than you consume you will lose weight. Eating less works for 100% of people.