Obesity rate in the future

[bluetech]

Another study has just come out predicting that in 10 years nearly half of all adults in the US will be obese. What's more is that they predict that nearly 25% of adults will be "severely obese", having a BMI of over 35 or being over 100 pounds overweight. 

It will be a golden age for FAs.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1909301

[bluetech]

On 2/13/2020 at 3:09 PM, Joliat said:

I dunno. I think we're likely to see more and more of the "medicalization" of obesity as a "disease." And as that paradigm takes hold, we are more and more likely to see medications and surgeries recommended to "cure" or "manage" the "illness." The net result, I would speculate, will be a significant drop in the obesity rate.

I'd have to strongly disagree with that assessment. It is hard to imagine obesity any more medicalized than it is today. Gastric bypass and the ingredients of fen-phen were invented in the 60s/70s, and became hugely popular in the 90s. And all you needed to qualify for either was to be diagnosed as "fat". In the medical community, it is nearly impossible to find anyone who doesn't consider having fat on your body to be a disease. Yet all of that hasn't done squat in the prevention or reduction of the ever increasing obesity rate.

On the other hand, I expect the younger generations - if not the millennials, at least gen z - to normalize being fat. For one, there will probably be more and more young BBW superstar role models like Lizzo preaching body positivity. That combined with the point allgrownup made about the snowball effect of fat people perceiving that their weight is normal when they see other fat people, I don't think a drop in the obesity rate or even a drop in the speed the obesity rate is increasing will happen any time soon.