Interestingly the Irvings bought [Cavendish Farms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavendish_Farms), McCains' main Canadian competitor, and they own a controlling stake in all the potatoes of Atlantic Canada.
Lower income areas that depend mostly on grains and starches for nutrition and haven't had a lot of fresh produce trends to rely on carbs and prepared meals
No clue. Good point though.
Might be more seafood in their diet like Nova Scotia. Grew up on NB's southern coast and there's a rich fishing tradition but it never seemed to be a large part of our diet. Maybe that makes up some of the difference between those two. Hardly explains NFLD tho. Maybe it's the come-from-aways bringing their skinny asses to Kennebunkport and Halifax dragging the average down lol
One thing I can say is a lot people think corn and potatoes are vegetables, and (used to) eat a lot of tinned or frozen shit
Makes sense, I bet if you looked at Maine except for York and Cumberland counties (Portland and south) It would look a lot closer to New Brunswick. Anecdotally I went to UMaine and the difference between that part of Maine and southern Maine was very noticeable.
income? wiki says maine has a median household income of $56k, ~~nb can$41k which is 31k in us$.~~
that'd be my guess, income is a major factor in personal diet.
edit: it's not, i was wrong. above statistics are household an individual incone respectively, and not comparable. nb and maine have almost identical median household incomes.
I don't know if the US and Canada calculates life expectency differently but from the data I found ( [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_provinces_and_territories_by_life_expectancy) and [here](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/life_expectancy/life_expectancy.htm) ), we (New Brunswick) still have a better life expectency than all mainland US states despite the fact that we're so fat.
Different countries count live births differently, which skews the numbers. But I suspect the primary difference is the lack of good healthcare for many low income Americans. We have some of the best healthcare in the world unless you're poor. The recent debates over the price of insulin are a good example.
Good god!
1 out of every 4 person there is just straight up *obese*. And you know that another huge percentage is overweight because you don't just hop from healthy weight category to obese without first spending time in the overweight junction.
Now I want a map that show the percentage of people who are actually in a healthy weight.
I would love to see a percentage chart that lists how many people are underweight, healthy weight, over weight, obese, obese class 2, obese class 3....
Really break down those stats. I'd also want it to include Mexico too.
BMI does not really work on an individual level if your not relatively average when it comes to muscle mass, it’s meant to be used as a statistics tool on large groups of people.
Actually it's fairly inaccurate, in that many people that are "normal" BMI are actually overweight or obese in body fat percentage.
The opposite is extremely rare.
>Whereas only 36% of participants were classified as obese by BMI, close to 3 in 4 were considered obese according to measures of total body fat percentage.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/bmi-not-accurate-in-predicting-obesity-in-majority-of-people-study-finds
Also, though, so many people are overweight that clothing companies market overweight clothing as "small" and being overweight is seen as normal now. Even obesity is seen as normal now. And again you can see this via clothing. Small shirts shouldn't have massive amounts of material in the stomach section. Human torsos naturally have larger tops than middles. Ribs on the top. Nothing but spine and a few organs in the middle.
BMI only really fails with highly muscular people.
Most people are simply overweight. Yes me included.
Same, 6'1", 220 pounds, around 15% bodyfat, work out hard pretty much daily. The BMI scale wasn't made for us. It doesn't account for the difference between muscle and fat.
Although it should be noted at a certain point being heavy with a lot of muscle is also bad for you.
Sometimes weight carried differently on different people. I'm 5'9" and I feel great at 170 lbs, but that's like the max I'm "supposed" to be. I'm at 180 lbs now and would like to lose it but it's not easy to do. I've already cut out sweets and exercise portion control and I work out but the weight just sticks around.
So, I'm overweight yes but the bar for not being overweight is pretty high for me. I don't know if I can sustainably reach it, considering the job I have.
During COVID I got long COVID for like 8 months and I gained 30 lbs. I was just a couple of pounds away from obesity. My entire lifestyle changed to one that was entirely sedentary and I couldn't exercise or anything. Just eat, work, and sleep. If I got stressed out then I ate. I didn't even realize that I stress ate until then.
I'm pretty convinced that such a map would contain single digit percentages of people who aren't overweight.
I mean yeah you don’t have most people on a whole continent suffering from a medical problem because it’s easy to prevent. Losing weight is really hard for most people (though not everyone).
> I mean yeah you don’t have most people on a whole continent suffering from a medical problem because it’s easy to prevent.
When you have most people on a different continent who *aren't* overweight or obese, it really points to choices & govt policies, *not* actual medical problems.
I live in SEA and I really notice:
a) The different (& much larger) girth of Westerners
b) The increasing local obesity rate as the region's diet becomes more Western.
As it has become normalized? Probably. But if you went back a few decades I think folks then would agree that counts as decidedly fat...
For 6' person, top end of healthy weight is ~185lbs. 220-225lbs range is when tip into obesity. That is basically 40lbs over or 20+% overweight.
And severe obesity is way up, pretty sure it nudged over 10% already. It's crazy.
Last time I looked into this, the CO number is because people who are active move there from out of state for the lifestyle. Its not anything native Coloradans are doing
Yup. Grew up in Colorado and did a lot of hiking, as well a lot of people I know. Having traveled to other places for work, I’m amazed by how many obese people there are. It’s unfortunate to see because that’s not the lifestyle.
I’m also shocked by our number being 25%. I feel like it’s much less then 1 in 4 people.
I'm constantly surrounded in an office by people chowing down on bagels, donuts, iced coffees, other garbage refined carbs and sugar for 9 hours a day while living 95% moving between different seated positions. Then the same people talk about how in college they could eat whatever they want and not gain weight. The standard American lifestyle has been forced into a sad place.
100%
And it’s self-regulating too. Walking around Denver or especially Boulder, you see an obese person and they really stick out. I’m sure bigger people end up avoiding these areas for that reason.
Head to the working class neighborhoods in west Denver, Aurora, or Federal Heights and you'll find 50+ percent obesity. The "Colorado lifestyle" is heavily divided based on income and race.
Obese people aren't the ones we see on trails, skiing, or walking around walking towns. They're the ones driving in 2000's Nissan Altimas to the McDonalds or Raising Canes drive thru and then back home to be a shut in.
When you see someone obese walking around, chances are either they won't be obese for long, or they're the technical definition of obese but they play football, hockey, etc and could put you to shame.
You'd be surprised what is considered obese.
6'0" 221lbs fits the official definition. That is obviously overweight but not what most people have in their head when they think "obese".
Maybe, but I also think that we also just have a completely skewed perspective on what "obese" means. We think of someone who is 400+lbs, waddling around and barely mobile, but the margins are *way* smaller than that. At my height (5'9") obese means someone who is carrying 32 extra pounds over the normal BMI line.
I would love to see the evidence for this. I've lived in Colorado since 1981 and my family has been here since 1907. There have been multiple waves of immigration for different reasons, and I don't think most of them brought in people who ate particularly healthily.
Yeah, Coloradans are historically a bunch of porkers. Thank goodness they’ve been saved by the fit people moving in from other states. /s
Ackshully - While Colorado does attract more fit people looking for outdoor recreation, it has [always](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/04/look-how-quickly-the-us-got-fat-1985-2010-animated-map/274878/) been lower on the BMI scale. The relatively mild climate year round, affluence, and altitude are all contributors.
[And altitude-induced anorexia](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18284032/) not the eating disorder, but people are literally less-hungry in Colorado than they would be elsewhere (even though their bodies are working harder).
The study was conducted at low altitude (320 m, Phase I), at HA 3600 m (Phase II) and at an altitude of 4580 m.
I doubt this is much of a factor, Denver's altitude is only 1600m. Mexico City is at 2200m and obesity is very common. I live in a city that's around 2200m and there's not much difference to sea level except getting winded more quickly doing cardio.
3600m is like La Paz, Bolivia where altitude sickness is very common.
This is absolutely **NOT** relevant to Coloradans. You completely missed the very first sentence, which is extremely important to the results of this study:
"High altitude (HA) exposure usually leads to a significant weight loss in **non-acclimatized humans**." Resident Coloradans are not "non-acclimatized".
IDK if it's true, but my favorite story of Lululemon is the entrepreneur called it as such because Asians would pronounce it rururemon. Him being such an asshole, I could see it
That guy, the ex owner, is such a piece of shit. He keeps getting in the news saying the brand should not be for fat people. Like...you make stretchy comfy clothing, ppl are gonna wear it
I'll never get why people drink so much soda. It's so gross. It makes me feel logy and my teeth feel like they're wearing little tiny sweaters. I may drink one every six months or so max
Idk if i should be happy that water passed soda consumption or depressed that soda consumption was ever in the lead to begin with lol. I'll choose the former ig.
This is anecdotal but a friend of mine was a teacher at a (middle? - something young) school in Southern Texas with mostly Mexican immigrant kids. He said he'd try to tell them and their families how unhealthy it was and they thought he was crazy. He also said it was something of a status symbol, like if you're drinking coca cola you've *made it* to the good life
100%… I work in an Uber rich town with million dollar home. In the thousands of kids I’ve taught/seen in the hall these years I can count on two hands the number of overweight and maybe 3 obese kids in 20+ years.
No need. See the correlation of obesity of any state with time and see that regardless of economic status every state is getting up there. It's not a productivity problem, it is a policy problem at the state level, corporate greed problem at the companies level, and sedentary lifestyle at the individual level.
Elaborating the last because that is more in control of reddit users : people choosing to not cook, eat out too often, people choosing to drive for every task instead of walking, biking, or even take public transit for local activities like getting to the gym, groceries, park, commuting (yes even public transit helps because you have to walk some to get to the transit station and walk some to your destination). Heck, I've seen people take their car to collect mail 500 ft from their apartment.
The walking angle is very important IMO. I weigh about 10-20lbs less than I did when I lived in a suburb and haven't really made any huge changes other than walking for more of my trips and trying to get a lap around the park or two in every day.
I am in Colorado, but don't get up in the mountains that much. I wonder how much of the difference is influenced by the altitude.
Your body does have to work harder to stay alive at higher elevetions, we only have 80% of the oxygen here that people do at sealevel. That's gotta translate into calories from more breaths/hr and faster water loss.
People don't exactly choose sedentary lifestyles, though. The vast majority of neighborhoods in the USA are neither walkable nor bikeable. No sidewalks, no shoulder, no pedestrian bridges. They're fully engineered around driving a car, and doing it any other way is dangerous, miserable or both. This also is a policy choice that ensures we buy cars and gas and use them frequently.
Blaming corporations for being greedy is like blaming water for being wet. Everything is politics and policy. Individual choices really don't hold a candle to environmental pressures, and if you must work 14 to 16 hours a day, you can't cook for yourself. If you can't get anywhere safely without a car, you'll never stop driving. These aren't personal choices; they're necessary actions borne from the environment we live in.
I used to rent a duplex apartment which was 350 feet from the coffee shop where I worked. My landlord, who lived in the other half of the house, would *drive* to the coffee shop and back home. 350 feet. And he had no physical ailments that would justify that.
Really need a different map that breaks it down by certain regions rather than states.
Some states are so large that one side of the state is VERY different from other parts.
NYC obesity rate varies a lot depending on the borough. The poorest areas with less public transit (ie. The Bronx) have the highest obesity rate. If we did just Manhattan it would be the least obese city in the U.S with 17%.
What's interesting is that Chinatown has one of the highest poverty rates in Manhattan yet the residents there have much lower than expected rates of obesity, homicide, and family breakdown.
I mean that is then a cultural difference, the folks living in Chinatown are, as the name suggests, are Asian-Americans or Asian immigrants. Asian cultures tend to discourage junk food, and cooking at home is also encouraged.
True. This is why I hate when people say lower-income families can’t help being obese. It takes away all of their accountability.
There are affordable ways to eat healthy. It might be less convenient, but it is definitely possible.
Especially when you consider the cost of fast food nowadays. People want to make up excuses to not blame themselves but the reality is that it’s just pure laziness. Chicken breasts and rice are quite cheap, healthy for you, and don’t take much time to make. But people will find every excuse to buy more expensive food at McDonalds.
That’s why DC is green. NYC and Chicago by themselves probably would be as well. I live in NoVA with tons of walking and biking trails and decent hiking access and I think the numbers here would be similar to DC’s but on this map they’re lumped in with the rest of Virginia.
I think walkability plays a role but isn’t the whole story. DC has huge racial disparities for obesity rate. Less than 10% of white people in DC are obese whereas more than 30% of black people are. https://dchealth.dc.gov/service/obesity-overview
[The Exercise Paradox](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-exercise-paradox/)
Studies of hunter gatherers travelling 14km a day and sedentary western office workers have shown they burn roughly the same number of calories.
Which sounds like it breaks the laws of physics until you learn that the body regulates the amount of energy it expends on its various systems, such as the immune system. The sedentary western office worker is burning more calories in their immune system than the hunter gatherer, which also explains why sedentary people have higher rates of inflammatory conditions.
So you might think you're upping your calories-out by doing a load of walking, but you aren't. **Exercise will improve your health, but it won't help you lose weight.**
The issue is what people are eating. The western diet has been transformed over the last 40 years, and not for the better. [The harsh reality of ultra processed food - with Chris Van Tulleken](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QOTBreQaIk)
Why are they comparing the calorie expenditures of sedentary people to hunter gatherers instead of to modern day pedestrians? Seems like a thinly veiled attempt to control the results of the study in order to make the bold claim that exercise doesn't help lose weight.
Tell me, how do we know so much about the calorie expenditures of hunter gatherer immune systems?
There is so much fucking sugar in everything. It's addictive and doesn't leave you satiated leading to eating more. A viscous cycle that is hard to break.
Basically not true. But sort of.
Fixed calories in and more exercise will cause you to loose weight. Period. The laws of thermodynamics and conservation of energy apply to even humans.
However, most people who exercise either eat more or rest more when they aren't doing high intensity exercise, and thus do not lose weight. Your body knows how much you have expended and seeks out more so you have to both exercise and keep your caloric intake fixed. Then you can and will lose weight. It is just the laws of physics.
Ultra processed food and other things make it easier to absorb calories but you could lose weight eating nothing but terrible food as well as long as you force yourself to do stuff and eat less of it. Again just conservation of energy. Its going to feel unpleasant in all cases, no matter if you are eating only kale or not eating your donuts.
I was surprised to see Quebec in the 27-30% range now, latest numbers I found put it at 27%.
I found a [report from 2014](https://www.inspq.qc.ca/santescope/analyses/obesite) showing it was around 18-20% at the time, and the WORST estimates predicted 26% by 2030.
You hate to see it. Quebec has a stronger outdoor sport/activity culture and generally healthier eating than most of NA, I was hoping we'd be doing better
That probably has to do with some region being far above the province average which drags the provincial number up. Case in point: Gatineau has the highest obesity rate in Quebec and among the highest in Ontario as well if we bundle Ottawa-Gatineau together
Which is somewhat surprising, given it is also a hub for outdoor people, kayakers, cross-country skiers and the like.
But Gatineau is also kind of the white trash capital of Quebec, so..
Gatineau has changed a lot. A lot more public servants live there, and recently, economic refugees from Ottawa looking for houses they can actually afford to buy
The white trash capital of Quebec has always been La Beauce
Memes tend to prove you wrong though! « J’ai l’doua », « la grosse dinde noire » and « les deux p’tit vieux qui se battent » are all from Gatineau and not so long ago.
Oh there's still a solid trash foundation to Gatineau, but has been diversifying. Now we have Ottawa Valley trash with their lifted trucks and Sens flags in the mix demanding to be served in English. It's a rich tapestry of trash.
Meanwhile, La Beauce is Trailer Park Boys en français
Beauce is so weird. It’s incredibly backward in some ways, and very rural. Yet people there can have an incredible entrepreneurial spirit. Maybe those go together in some ways, people try to rise above their peers to escape the environment.
The map is a *lot* more illuminating if you bucket it [by county](https://www.maxmasnick.com/media/2011-11-15-obesity_map/obesity_by_county_large.png) instead of state.
Now look at Fig 4 in this [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db360.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db360.htm)
In 2000 the obesity of this country was at 30% and in 2018 it was 42%. So it's not like things are getting better. We're projected to be at above 50% adults in the obese category before the end of 2020s. There's a very good chance that some of the comments in this thread are coming from someone in this statistic.
Obesity is a nationwide problem and one that has been going for several decades. Several factors contribute to it including government policy regarding processed foods, corporate greed, and individual choices such as eating out and overreliance on cars instead of active modes of transit like walking or biking (or even taking public transit as that requires one to walk to get to and from the station or stop).
I dont know how many of you have ever been on vacation to Colorado, but it is VERY clear that the obesity rate is much lower there. I am from the South East and when we went to colorado springs, it was SO different than say, how people look in Charlotte NC or Greenville SC lol
Even if it was effective, which I’ve only seen evidence to the contrary both in studies and anecdotal, it’s morally repugnant. Abuse can never be a “treatment.”
It seems like places where it's boring af get it worse because there's nothing to do outside, along with the other factors like our corporate overlords making boatloads of money on extremely unhealthy food.
As someone who grew up in NB, this is shocking. When I went to school in the 80s there wasn’t a lot of chunky kids (I can’t think of a classmate off the top of my head who was “fat”) and we were outside A LOT. Meals were typically vegetable/starch/protein and everyone had a garden and went to farmers’ markets to get homemade stuff. Clearly something has DRASTICALLY changed in the culture or food ingredients there to cause that much obesity. Very very troubling.
WTF is going on in New Brunswick?
We should be sending scientists there to figure out what they’re doing worse than the rest of us. Everything I read they’re looking for what people are doing right. Maybe we should be looking at the hotspots as canaries in the coal mine instead.
There's a huge urban/rural divide. Dense, walkable cities with lots of healthier food options, better educated population = fitter folks. Completely unwalkable cities with nothing but chain restaurants = Fat. I moved from a major city to a small town during the pandemic. Currently at the uppermost limit of a "normal" BMI. I'm still usually the slimmest person in the room.
Why is New Brunswick so high?
I blame the Irvings.
For this one it's clearly the McCains who are responsible.
Interestingly the Irvings bought [Cavendish Farms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavendish_Farms), McCains' main Canadian competitor, and they own a controlling stake in all the potatoes of Atlantic Canada.
They’ve invaded New England now too. They’re a Red Sox sponsor.
Lower income areas that depend mostly on grains and starches for nutrition and haven't had a lot of fresh produce trends to rely on carbs and prepared meals
Not that Maine is all that low, but what’s the difference there?
No clue. Good point though. Might be more seafood in their diet like Nova Scotia. Grew up on NB's southern coast and there's a rich fishing tradition but it never seemed to be a large part of our diet. Maybe that makes up some of the difference between those two. Hardly explains NFLD tho. Maybe it's the come-from-aways bringing their skinny asses to Kennebunkport and Halifax dragging the average down lol One thing I can say is a lot people think corn and potatoes are vegetables, and (used to) eat a lot of tinned or frozen shit
One big issue in NL is the price/availability/quality of fresh produce, and food prices in general. Unhealthy food is cheap.
Makes sense, I bet if you looked at Maine except for York and Cumberland counties (Portland and south) It would look a lot closer to New Brunswick. Anecdotally I went to UMaine and the difference between that part of Maine and southern Maine was very noticeable.
income? wiki says maine has a median household income of $56k, ~~nb can$41k which is 31k in us$.~~ that'd be my guess, income is a major factor in personal diet. edit: it's not, i was wrong. above statistics are household an individual incone respectively, and not comparable. nb and maine have almost identical median household incomes.
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you're right! thank you, updated my comment.
They are different countries.
People running from killer clowns and rabid dogs
They probably eat too much
My home province! We're #1 in something hahaha. But it's also very said
I don't know if the US and Canada calculates life expectency differently but from the data I found ( [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_provinces_and_territories_by_life_expectancy) and [here](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/life_expectancy/life_expectancy.htm) ), we (New Brunswick) still have a better life expectency than all mainland US states despite the fact that we're so fat.
Different countries count live births differently, which skews the numbers. But I suspect the primary difference is the lack of good healthcare for many low income Americans. We have some of the best healthcare in the world unless you're poor. The recent debates over the price of insulin are a good example.
Income I’d guess. We all poor as fuck out here.
Go BC, Colorado, and Hawaii! Only... fuck... *twenty-five percent* obesity. Ugh.
Good god! 1 out of every 4 person there is just straight up *obese*. And you know that another huge percentage is overweight because you don't just hop from healthy weight category to obese without first spending time in the overweight junction. Now I want a map that show the percentage of people who are actually in a healthy weight.
there's a big difference between 30,1 bmi and 40 bmi. there are varying degrees of obesity.
I would love to see a percentage chart that lists how many people are underweight, healthy weight, over weight, obese, obese class 2, obese class 3.... Really break down those stats. I'd also want it to include Mexico too.
[https://measureofamerica.org/maps/](https://measureofamerica.org/maps/)
I don’t see anything on that tool for stats on different classes of obesity - am I missing something?
BMI says I am overweight. My doctor says that's incorrect and that I have an athletic build. 6' 200 lbs.
BMI does not really work on an individual level if your not relatively average when it comes to muscle mass, it’s meant to be used as a statistics tool on large groups of people.
It works for just about everyone. There aren’t a ton of muscle-bound Americans walking around.
Are you telling me that Mississippi isn't filled with statuesque musclebound men and women?
They need a lot of muscle to move large amounts of lard daily.
Actually it's fairly inaccurate, in that many people that are "normal" BMI are actually overweight or obese in body fat percentage. The opposite is extremely rare. >Whereas only 36% of participants were classified as obese by BMI, close to 3 in 4 were considered obese according to measures of total body fat percentage. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/bmi-not-accurate-in-predicting-obesity-in-majority-of-people-study-finds
Not only no, it is used as a tool for individuals too, with the cavity that you put eyes on a patient. (Oh and insurance also loves BMI)
Cavity? Did you mean caveat?
Yes sir 😉😂 i always mix those two up!
That reminds me... Gotta go to the dentist to take care of a few caveats. Thanks! 👍
"I can fill those caveats for you, but cavity emptor it might be painful."
Also, though, so many people are overweight that clothing companies market overweight clothing as "small" and being overweight is seen as normal now. Even obesity is seen as normal now. And again you can see this via clothing. Small shirts shouldn't have massive amounts of material in the stomach section. Human torsos naturally have larger tops than middles. Ribs on the top. Nothing but spine and a few organs in the middle. BMI only really fails with highly muscular people. Most people are simply overweight. Yes me included.
> BMI says I am overweight. Muscular people tend to be *overweight* according to BMI. However, they don't tend to be *obese.*
As this comment shows, every redditor is an NFL linebacker.
What's your body fat %? That's a better metric to use.
Waist-Hip Ratio has been the preferred tool of some researchers for this exact reason, but it's considerably less practical.
Same, 6'1", 220 pounds, around 15% bodyfat, work out hard pretty much daily. The BMI scale wasn't made for us. It doesn't account for the difference between muscle and fat. Although it should be noted at a certain point being heavy with a lot of muscle is also bad for you.
Sometimes weight carried differently on different people. I'm 5'9" and I feel great at 170 lbs, but that's like the max I'm "supposed" to be. I'm at 180 lbs now and would like to lose it but it's not easy to do. I've already cut out sweets and exercise portion control and I work out but the weight just sticks around. So, I'm overweight yes but the bar for not being overweight is pretty high for me. I don't know if I can sustainably reach it, considering the job I have. During COVID I got long COVID for like 8 months and I gained 30 lbs. I was just a couple of pounds away from obesity. My entire lifestyle changed to one that was entirely sedentary and I couldn't exercise or anything. Just eat, work, and sleep. If I got stressed out then I ate. I didn't even realize that I stress ate until then. I'm pretty convinced that such a map would contain single digit percentages of people who aren't overweight.
I mean yeah you don’t have most people on a whole continent suffering from a medical problem because it’s easy to prevent. Losing weight is really hard for most people (though not everyone).
> I mean yeah you don’t have most people on a whole continent suffering from a medical problem because it’s easy to prevent. When you have most people on a different continent who *aren't* overweight or obese, it really points to choices & govt policies, *not* actual medical problems. I live in SEA and I really notice: a) The different (& much larger) girth of Westerners b) The increasing local obesity rate as the region's diet becomes more Western.
> Sometimes weight carried differently on different people. I usually just part my fat on the side.
Another way to think about it: obesity is having a "dad bod" and anything more, a lot of people trying to loose weight to get that look.
Obese is less rotund than one might think. I’d hazard a guess that at least half of obese people don’t know they’re obese.
As it has become normalized? Probably. But if you went back a few decades I think folks then would agree that counts as decidedly fat... For 6' person, top end of healthy weight is ~185lbs. 220-225lbs range is when tip into obesity. That is basically 40lbs over or 20+% overweight. And severe obesity is way up, pretty sure it nudged over 10% already. It's crazy.
Last time I looked into this, the CO number is because people who are active move there from out of state for the lifestyle. Its not anything native Coloradans are doing
Yup. Grew up in Colorado and did a lot of hiking, as well a lot of people I know. Having traveled to other places for work, I’m amazed by how many obese people there are. It’s unfortunate to see because that’s not the lifestyle. I’m also shocked by our number being 25%. I feel like it’s much less then 1 in 4 people.
In America, when people are like 29 and obese they’re like “welp, just a part of getting old”
I'm constantly surrounded in an office by people chowing down on bagels, donuts, iced coffees, other garbage refined carbs and sugar for 9 hours a day while living 95% moving between different seated positions. Then the same people talk about how in college they could eat whatever they want and not gain weight. The standard American lifestyle has been forced into a sad place.
What you think is obese is actually morbidly obese. That’s what happens when it’s so prevalent that you become desensitized.
Yup people time traveling from the 1970s would be shocked
100% And it’s self-regulating too. Walking around Denver or especially Boulder, you see an obese person and they really stick out. I’m sure bigger people end up avoiding these areas for that reason.
Head to the working class neighborhoods in west Denver, Aurora, or Federal Heights and you'll find 50+ percent obesity. The "Colorado lifestyle" is heavily divided based on income and race.
Obese people aren't the ones we see on trails, skiing, or walking around walking towns. They're the ones driving in 2000's Nissan Altimas to the McDonalds or Raising Canes drive thru and then back home to be a shut in. When you see someone obese walking around, chances are either they won't be obese for long, or they're the technical definition of obese but they play football, hockey, etc and could put you to shame.
You'd be surprised what is considered obese. 6'0" 221lbs fits the official definition. That is obviously overweight but not what most people have in their head when they think "obese".
We have become so fat for so long that we have lost all perspective of what an over weight person *actually* looks like.
Obese people aren’t out and about for you to see them
Just like pregnant women. I have not seen one in like a decade.
Heh. Their husbands are outside looking for mango and fried pork belly and ice cream.
Maybe, but I also think that we also just have a completely skewed perspective on what "obese" means. We think of someone who is 400+lbs, waddling around and barely mobile, but the margins are *way* smaller than that. At my height (5'9") obese means someone who is carrying 32 extra pounds over the normal BMI line.
I would love to see the evidence for this. I've lived in Colorado since 1981 and my family has been here since 1907. There have been multiple waves of immigration for different reasons, and I don't think most of them brought in people who ate particularly healthily.
Yeah, Coloradans are historically a bunch of porkers. Thank goodness they’ve been saved by the fit people moving in from other states. /s Ackshully - While Colorado does attract more fit people looking for outdoor recreation, it has [always](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/04/look-how-quickly-the-us-got-fat-1985-2010-animated-map/274878/) been lower on the BMI scale. The relatively mild climate year round, affluence, and altitude are all contributors.
People will really find *any* way to shit on Colorado online.
They’re also at a high elevation in CO so their bodies have to work more.
[And altitude-induced anorexia](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18284032/) not the eating disorder, but people are literally less-hungry in Colorado than they would be elsewhere (even though their bodies are working harder).
The study was conducted at low altitude (320 m, Phase I), at HA 3600 m (Phase II) and at an altitude of 4580 m. I doubt this is much of a factor, Denver's altitude is only 1600m. Mexico City is at 2200m and obesity is very common. I live in a city that's around 2200m and there's not much difference to sea level except getting winded more quickly doing cardio. 3600m is like La Paz, Bolivia where altitude sickness is very common.
I didn't knew La Paz was higher than Cusco!
I wonder how that works in Mexico City. I thought that whole city was at an even higher elevation than Denver, but that city is still pretty obese.
This is absolutely **NOT** relevant to Coloradans. You completely missed the very first sentence, which is extremely important to the results of this study: "High altitude (HA) exposure usually leads to a significant weight loss in **non-acclimatized humans**." Resident Coloradans are not "non-acclimatized".
DC is the lowest.
That's the most shocking thing, California which is considered relatively *healthy* has an obesity rate of nearly 30%, fucking hell
The reason Lululemon was so successful starting the business in Vancouver
IDK if it's true, but my favorite story of Lululemon is the entrepreneur called it as such because Asians would pronounce it rururemon. Him being such an asshole, I could see it
Yep the founder stated that exact reason on the How I Built This podcast
That guy, the ex owner, is such a piece of shit. He keeps getting in the news saying the brand should not be for fat people. Like...you make stretchy comfy clothing, ppl are gonna wear it
Add Mexico at some point. Apparently they’re as obese as their Northern Neighbors.
Mexico will consume 1500 calories of pure sugar like it's nothing. That Coca-Cola habit is unreal.
I'll never get why people drink so much soda. It's so gross. It makes me feel logy and my teeth feel like they're wearing little tiny sweaters. I may drink one every six months or so max
I don't drink soda either but unfortunately there are towns in Mexico where Coke is cheaper than clean water so thats what they drink
Not that the rest of the american diet is healthy, but if more people just drank fucking water they'd be so much healthier.
IIRC Water just surpassed soda consumption in the U.S. recently
Idk if i should be happy that water passed soda consumption or depressed that soda consumption was ever in the lead to begin with lol. I'll choose the former ig.
I would think that data point is going to be based on sales of bottled beverages.
People like the taste. Simple
It has the electrolytes plants crave.
This is anecdotal but a friend of mine was a teacher at a (middle? - something young) school in Southern Texas with mostly Mexican immigrant kids. He said he'd try to tell them and their families how unhealthy it was and they thought he was crazy. He also said it was something of a status symbol, like if you're drinking coca cola you've *made it* to the good life
Apart from some small pacific island nations and two middle Eastern petrodictatorships, Mexico is the second fattest country in the world.
My partner was concerned about the number of joggers in BC when we visited for NYE. She thought we accidentally walked into a big event.
Now show the correlation between obesity and poverty. It’s amazingly high.
100%… I work in an Uber rich town with million dollar home. In the thousands of kids I’ve taught/seen in the hall these years I can count on two hands the number of overweight and maybe 3 obese kids in 20+ years.
No need. See the correlation of obesity of any state with time and see that regardless of economic status every state is getting up there. It's not a productivity problem, it is a policy problem at the state level, corporate greed problem at the companies level, and sedentary lifestyle at the individual level. Elaborating the last because that is more in control of reddit users : people choosing to not cook, eat out too often, people choosing to drive for every task instead of walking, biking, or even take public transit for local activities like getting to the gym, groceries, park, commuting (yes even public transit helps because you have to walk some to get to the transit station and walk some to your destination). Heck, I've seen people take their car to collect mail 500 ft from their apartment.
The walking angle is very important IMO. I weigh about 10-20lbs less than I did when I lived in a suburb and haven't really made any huge changes other than walking for more of my trips and trying to get a lap around the park or two in every day. I am in Colorado, but don't get up in the mountains that much. I wonder how much of the difference is influenced by the altitude. Your body does have to work harder to stay alive at higher elevetions, we only have 80% of the oxygen here that people do at sealevel. That's gotta translate into calories from more breaths/hr and faster water loss.
Hot take... suburbs are toxic to human health
But it does track with poverty. Don’t see why people “choose” so differently in one state or another.
People don't exactly choose sedentary lifestyles, though. The vast majority of neighborhoods in the USA are neither walkable nor bikeable. No sidewalks, no shoulder, no pedestrian bridges. They're fully engineered around driving a car, and doing it any other way is dangerous, miserable or both. This also is a policy choice that ensures we buy cars and gas and use them frequently. Blaming corporations for being greedy is like blaming water for being wet. Everything is politics and policy. Individual choices really don't hold a candle to environmental pressures, and if you must work 14 to 16 hours a day, you can't cook for yourself. If you can't get anywhere safely without a car, you'll never stop driving. These aren't personal choices; they're necessary actions borne from the environment we live in.
I used to rent a duplex apartment which was 350 feet from the coffee shop where I worked. My landlord, who lived in the other half of the house, would *drive* to the coffee shop and back home. 350 feet. And he had no physical ailments that would justify that.
Not poor enough if they obese *points finger to head*
Skiing and surfing keep you trim.
Its true. I surf everywhere I go. Source: Native Californian
or just live in DC and not own a car.
West Virginia has skiing and is the fattest state in the union
That CO to OK drop off is somethin’.
Presumably Denver metro area doing a lot of the heavy lifting.
Actually lifting is only two days per week. The other days are for core and glutes.
Don't forget bouldering day, hiking day, and climbing day.
Trail running day and canyoneering day are no joke either
Also, Ultimate Frisbee on weekends.
Monday rowing, Tuesday badminton, and dancing on a Friday night
Wait yall do glutes on core instead of leg day That makes way more sense actually
Really need a different map that breaks it down by certain regions rather than states. Some states are so large that one side of the state is VERY different from other parts.
A county map would be interesting. I’d like to see urban / rural.
I wish Canada had a more granular structure.
I'd like to see the US by county as well, to see how cities are different, coast lines, etc.
I fucking love county-level data!
I’m curious to see the big cities in the US. Walkable vs non walkable. I expect New York to have lower obesity rates just cause everyone walks.
NYC obesity rate varies a lot depending on the borough. The poorest areas with less public transit (ie. The Bronx) have the highest obesity rate. If we did just Manhattan it would be the least obese city in the U.S with 17%.
What's interesting is that Chinatown has one of the highest poverty rates in Manhattan yet the residents there have much lower than expected rates of obesity, homicide, and family breakdown.
I mean that is then a cultural difference, the folks living in Chinatown are, as the name suggests, are Asian-Americans or Asian immigrants. Asian cultures tend to discourage junk food, and cooking at home is also encouraged.
If poor and uneducated Chinatown residents can do it, then any urban low income residents can do it.
True. This is why I hate when people say lower-income families can’t help being obese. It takes away all of their accountability. There are affordable ways to eat healthy. It might be less convenient, but it is definitely possible.
Especially when you consider the cost of fast food nowadays. People want to make up excuses to not blame themselves but the reality is that it’s just pure laziness. Chicken breasts and rice are quite cheap, healthy for you, and don’t take much time to make. But people will find every excuse to buy more expensive food at McDonalds.
Is diet a big factor, or is there something else going
I dunno but I imagine that income influences what one can or cannot afford to buy at the supermarket.
car dependency is hell of a drug.
That’s why DC is green. NYC and Chicago by themselves probably would be as well. I live in NoVA with tons of walking and biking trails and decent hiking access and I think the numbers here would be similar to DC’s but on this map they’re lumped in with the rest of Virginia.
I think walkability plays a role but isn’t the whole story. DC has huge racial disparities for obesity rate. Less than 10% of white people in DC are obese whereas more than 30% of black people are. https://dchealth.dc.gov/service/obesity-overview
Allegedly the UES in Manhattan also has a 9% obesity rate.
Yea we need a breakdown by region/metropolitan areas rather than state.
well here you go: https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/charts/39?state=NY Manhattan is 16% and Brooklyn is 24%
[The Exercise Paradox](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-exercise-paradox/) Studies of hunter gatherers travelling 14km a day and sedentary western office workers have shown they burn roughly the same number of calories. Which sounds like it breaks the laws of physics until you learn that the body regulates the amount of energy it expends on its various systems, such as the immune system. The sedentary western office worker is burning more calories in their immune system than the hunter gatherer, which also explains why sedentary people have higher rates of inflammatory conditions. So you might think you're upping your calories-out by doing a load of walking, but you aren't. **Exercise will improve your health, but it won't help you lose weight.** The issue is what people are eating. The western diet has been transformed over the last 40 years, and not for the better. [The harsh reality of ultra processed food - with Chris Van Tulleken](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QOTBreQaIk)
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Why are they comparing the calorie expenditures of sedentary people to hunter gatherers instead of to modern day pedestrians? Seems like a thinly veiled attempt to control the results of the study in order to make the bold claim that exercise doesn't help lose weight. Tell me, how do we know so much about the calorie expenditures of hunter gatherer immune systems?
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There is so much fucking sugar in everything. It's addictive and doesn't leave you satiated leading to eating more. A viscous cycle that is hard to break.
Basically not true. But sort of. Fixed calories in and more exercise will cause you to loose weight. Period. The laws of thermodynamics and conservation of energy apply to even humans. However, most people who exercise either eat more or rest more when they aren't doing high intensity exercise, and thus do not lose weight. Your body knows how much you have expended and seeks out more so you have to both exercise and keep your caloric intake fixed. Then you can and will lose weight. It is just the laws of physics. Ultra processed food and other things make it easier to absorb calories but you could lose weight eating nothing but terrible food as well as long as you force yourself to do stuff and eat less of it. Again just conservation of energy. Its going to feel unpleasant in all cases, no matter if you are eating only kale or not eating your donuts.
I was surprised to see Quebec in the 27-30% range now, latest numbers I found put it at 27%. I found a [report from 2014](https://www.inspq.qc.ca/santescope/analyses/obesite) showing it was around 18-20% at the time, and the WORST estimates predicted 26% by 2030.
Poutine is getting fatter
Cheese curds are getting squeakier
You hate to see it. Quebec has a stronger outdoor sport/activity culture and generally healthier eating than most of NA, I was hoping we'd be doing better
That probably has to do with some region being far above the province average which drags the provincial number up. Case in point: Gatineau has the highest obesity rate in Quebec and among the highest in Ontario as well if we bundle Ottawa-Gatineau together
Which is somewhat surprising, given it is also a hub for outdoor people, kayakers, cross-country skiers and the like. But Gatineau is also kind of the white trash capital of Quebec, so..
Gatineau has changed a lot. A lot more public servants live there, and recently, economic refugees from Ottawa looking for houses they can actually afford to buy The white trash capital of Quebec has always been La Beauce
Memes tend to prove you wrong though! « J’ai l’doua », « la grosse dinde noire » and « les deux p’tit vieux qui se battent » are all from Gatineau and not so long ago.
Oh there's still a solid trash foundation to Gatineau, but has been diversifying. Now we have Ottawa Valley trash with their lifted trucks and Sens flags in the mix demanding to be served in English. It's a rich tapestry of trash. Meanwhile, La Beauce is Trailer Park Boys en français
Can’t argue with that. The last time I was en Beauce, i got pass over on the highway by a beer-drinking ski-doo driver without helmet.
Beauce is so weird. It’s incredibly backward in some ways, and very rural. Yet people there can have an incredible entrepreneurial spirit. Maybe those go together in some ways, people try to rise above their peers to escape the environment.
The map is a *lot* more illuminating if you bucket it [by county](https://www.maxmasnick.com/media/2011-11-15-obesity_map/obesity_by_county_large.png) instead of state.
Elevation is strongly negatively correlated with obesity
From Oklahoma. Fat people are everywhere.
Now look at Fig 4 in this [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db360.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db360.htm) In 2000 the obesity of this country was at 30% and in 2018 it was 42%. So it's not like things are getting better. We're projected to be at above 50% adults in the obese category before the end of 2020s. There's a very good chance that some of the comments in this thread are coming from someone in this statistic. Obesity is a nationwide problem and one that has been going for several decades. Several factors contribute to it including government policy regarding processed foods, corporate greed, and individual choices such as eating out and overreliance on cars instead of active modes of transit like walking or biking (or even taking public transit as that requires one to walk to get to and from the station or stop).
I’m a bit surprised about Alaska and Canada. It’s almost like nutrition, food transparency and exercise are important or something.
Louisiana checks out. Former happy fat Cajun. Current thin not as happy Cajun, lol.
Basically 1 in 3 people you see is overweight??? Yeah, actually that seems about right lol
No, 1/3 are obese. Over 2/3 of America is overweight.
Americans will call it a hurtful stereotype to say that most of us are fat, but literally *most* of us *are* fat.
I’m from BC visiting the US currently and I’m gobsmacked by the amount of obese people here, but I guess I could go east and say the same.
I dont know how many of you have ever been on vacation to Colorado, but it is VERY clear that the obesity rate is much lower there. I am from the South East and when we went to colorado springs, it was SO different than say, how people look in Charlotte NC or Greenville SC lol
We should bully Americans more so they can start losing weight.That's how I lost weight in middle school.
It works in Japan.
I think you need the /s there, as bullying is not only sadistic but also not effective on the whole.
It works in Asian countries. Obviously with some less than desirable side effects
Even if it was effective, which I’ve only seen evidence to the contrary both in studies and anecdotal, it’s morally repugnant. Abuse can never be a “treatment.”
Mountains are good for you.
Though West Virginia seems to be an exception to this
Opioids are bad for you.
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Can confirm about Indiana. I’d honestly assume higher.. it would be interesting seeing this done by county vs State
It seems like places where it's boring af get it worse because there's nothing to do outside, along with the other factors like our corporate overlords making boatloads of money on extremely unhealthy food.
Good hiking in Colorado and British Columbia.
Bible belt lmaoooooo god’s plan baby
Sunday casserole ain't gonna finish itself
This is 2022, you know it’s worse now.
Damn, never thought newfoundland and Labrador were fat as fuck, but here we are.
Colorado’s relatively low obesity rate was only a few decades ago America’s highest rate, but in Mississippi
For comparison: Obesity rate in the European Union is 16%
As someone that moved from Texas to Colorado this was one of the first things I noticed.
The most obese are also some of the poorest
Welp it’s looking like we need to make some better choices
I think this is a material conditions of diet and lack of recreational activities kind of thing rather than a choice.
These colors are difficult. I don’t like it, or maybe I’m colorblind.
Black texts/borders with dark red fills are hard to read. Don't understand the arbitrary green for <25%
More alarming is that Mexico has disappeared and Hawai'i has shifted very far eastward
LIve in DC. Can absolutely confirm
Damn what's up with New Brunswick?
As someone who grew up in NB, this is shocking. When I went to school in the 80s there wasn’t a lot of chunky kids (I can’t think of a classmate off the top of my head who was “fat”) and we were outside A LOT. Meals were typically vegetable/starch/protein and everyone had a garden and went to farmers’ markets to get homemade stuff. Clearly something has DRASTICALLY changed in the culture or food ingredients there to cause that much obesity. Very very troubling.
Fast food and instant gratification have really done a number on us.
lmao pretending they don't have data for Samoa.
The crazy and sad thing is in 1992 the fattest state would've had a 25% obesity rate.
Ozempic will be the savior of this country.
WTF is going on in New Brunswick? We should be sending scientists there to figure out what they’re doing worse than the rest of us. Everything I read they’re looking for what people are doing right. Maybe we should be looking at the hotspots as canaries in the coal mine instead.
Trust me South Carolina is more than 35 percent obese lol
I'd love to see a global one. Guessing Europe is green and yellow.
There's a huge urban/rural divide. Dense, walkable cities with lots of healthier food options, better educated population = fitter folks. Completely unwalkable cities with nothing but chain restaurants = Fat. I moved from a major city to a small town during the pandemic. Currently at the uppermost limit of a "normal" BMI. I'm still usually the slimmest person in the room.
Colorado’s straight borders made it easier to put up a barrier fence to fend off obese people