435

Summary

A new Lancet study reveals nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, a sharp rise from just over half in 1990.

Obesity among adults doubled to over 40%, while rates among girls and women aged 15–24 nearly tripled to 29%.

The study highlights significant health risks, including diabetes, heart disease, and shortened life expectancy, alongside projected medical costs of up to $9.1 trillion over the next decade.

Experts stress obesity’s complex causes—genetic, environmental, and social—and call for structural reforms like food subsidies, taxes on sugary drinks, and expanded treatment access.

Non-paywall link

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 11 points 7 hours ago

The shitty US labor laws (piss poor working conditions) are one of many problems associated with obesity.

[-] Dettweiler42@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 9 hours ago

Every time I visit Germany, I eat and drink a ton. I'll lose about 5 lbs that week just from the higher quality food and walking convenience.

[-] PraiseTheSoup@lemm.ee 8 points 9 hours ago

That's interesting. Germans certainly aren't known for their healthy food when you look at the prevalence of cured meats and things like currywurst.

[-] spujb@lemmy.cafe 5 points 3 hours ago

contrary to conventional wisdom, quality of food isn’t really considered a primary instigator of the obesity epidemic. rather, environmental factors such as poverty, failures in education/access to diet information, and car-centric urbanization are proven to be much bigger factors in the ongoing health crisis.

in other words, america could be totally healthy eating the exact same food if we built society around people living healthy lives, but that is far from the primary goal for a country living under capital.

[-] Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago

At least the Germans have time to take care of themselves, but quite a bit of the food is processed too.

[-] WhyFlip@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago

Where do you normally eat?

[-] Entertainmeonly@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 8 hours ago

Probably the real reason why McDonald T-rump got voted for again.

[-] spujb@lemmy.cafe 2 points 4 hours ago

genuinely curious wtf you mean with this lol. like i’m not following at all.

[-] aeharding@vger.social 3 points 8 hours ago
[-] MellowYellow13@lemmy.world 35 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

When I bring my rice and veggy curry to lunch I become a spectacle for everyone. Because they are all either ordering fast food, not eating, or just eating junk and snack food. This is a huge problem, why am I spectacle for doing something so basic?

There are actually microaggressions from people to me just because I eat healthy.

[-] apocalypticat@lemmy.world 6 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Some previous coworkers I had were blown away by a pear that I brought as part of my lunch. A pear!!!

edit: duh, not pair

[-] Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee 5 points 10 hours ago

I can't tell if you're kidding, but the homonym you're looking for is pear.

[-] LePoisson@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago

I was really confused for a second thinking, "a pair of what" then I realized you meant pear!! Lol. English is fun

[-] BigBenis@lemmy.world 12 points 13 hours ago

People hate being reminded that the conveniences they enjoy are unhealthy/unethical/etc. All it takes is somebody else choosing differently to trigger defensiveness and denialism. Rather than making changes to their own life they choose to ridicule those who are making better decisions.

[-] Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee 6 points 10 hours ago

Business school calls it Escalation of Commitment.

load more comments (6 replies)
[-] GrayBackgroundMusic@lemm.ee 7 points 14 hours ago

Social/environmental - life is fucking terrible and I have to take anxiety meds to survive it without panicking and breaking down. My last meds made me hungry CONSTANTLY. Sadly, I didn't know it was the meds until about 3 months ago. New med calms the anxiety and doesn't make me starving all the time.

I am not built for modern society.

[-] spujb@lemmy.cafe 2 points 3 hours ago

I am not built for modern society.

No one is. Modern society wasn’t even built for you. We are just means to an end under capital.

[-] Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works 33 points 20 hours ago

Under-educated overweight people with guns. Everything's gonna be alright.

[-] Subtracty@lemmy.world 43 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

I have noticed the general public is now very tolerant of sweet drinks. I know that is not the only problem. I was never allowed soda or coffee or sweet tea growing up, so don't have much of a tolerance for them now. But when I try popular coffees (pumpkin spice this or vanilla chai that) or cocktails at most restaurants, I am surprised that people don't send them back and ask for less sweetener.

As an infrequent treat, I can understand it. But if you are drinking that much sugar on a daily basis, it must seriously screw with your system. I am sure lots of people are drinking a huge amount of calories and don't register how different that is from past generations.

[-] TonyOstrich@lemmy.world 12 points 18 hours ago

I(M) am an actually healthy weight (I believe I'm almost exactly average for my height and build for a man in the 60s or 70s), but my brain has absolutely been hijacked by sugar, and I can tell. Even avoiding over sweetened stuff for months and months I will still get cravings and having something I know a European would find sickeningly sweet I find is very similar to how junkies describe a relapse.

Despite all of that, I refuse to give in. I enjoy the freedom having a relatively healthy body gives me. Makes finding a partner with a similar mindset and goals hard though. It's worse than a Thanos snap, 3/4 of the population just gone.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2024
435 points (98.9% liked)

News

23301 readers
3522 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS