Obesity rate in the future

[Guest high]

13 hours ago, cheddar said:

Or if you're patient enough (or want) to enjoy the ride, you can just find someone that's on their way to adding to the national embiggening.

The patterns of ethnicity and demography in the fattest states match the underlying drivers of obesity being more about money and status than anything. Can't afford wholegrain? Eat white bread. Can't afford OJ? Drink Sunny D and Sunkist. Can't afford to feed yourself? Enjoy trying to spend those food stamps on something healthier than government cheese. Get sick from this diet? Looks like you won't be able to earn your way out of it as the insurance company raises premiums - assuming you have any.

That doesn't mean that you have to be poor to get fat, but that's one of the reasons why the trend is uneven, particularly when you look at racial divides on poverty. And people wonder why healthcare is such an important issue this current election cycle, lol.

Nature's Own Life bread is $3.44 per loaf at Walmart, which is less than a dollar more than their butterbread. Sometimes it's not "evil men" or "conspiracies" or class warfare. Sometimes it's just not being educated about things, or making bad decisions (ooh, look, donuts). 

 

[cheddar]

Education absolutely plays a part, but that's where things like public education and cost of higher education (especially if there isn't a college you can just walk to around the corner) come in - not just for the individual, but for future generations.

That said, I don't think that's the best example. Compare that $3.44 to what people on the breadline would be tempted by (and the sort of stuff I've seen as a volunteer used by charity food vans when they need to minimise cost as much as possible) - the $0.84 Great Value White Bread (or similar) at the nearest Walmart. That's $2.6 - enough to buy three more loaves of that cheap bread. If you buy two loaves per week for your family (which is still only enough for like 1.86 sandwiches per day), that's over $5 weekly off the grocery list that people might want (or be forced) to spend elsewhere.

Combine those sorts of price cuts with those you can make elsewhere with shopping and it absolutely adds up for people at the bottom.

It also adds up in their bottoms.

[Pancakes]

On 3/2/2020 at 1:27 AM, cheddar said:

that's one of the reasons why the trend is uneven, particularly when you look at racial divides on poverty.

You're absolutely right, the CDC even includes data on education attainment, but the difference between ethnicities likely can't solely be attributed to financial status. Much of it can be attributed to cultural differences and some amount of biological predisposition amongst various ethnic groups.

[cheddar]

When you think about those cultural differences, some are themselves relics of historical disparity; one of the reasons that 'soul food' has all sorts of fatty treats like chitlins and uses a lot of animal fat is due to the limitations on what slaves had access to and the necessity of using as much of meat as they could where available. But lot of that culture has shifted over the last century - as has diet, though hints of African-American cuisine did find their way into modern US fast food.

There may be some predisposition to a different pattern of fat storage, but based on the last time I did a (quick) literature review on that part of health geography (~3 year ago) it wasn't that large relatively - though it certainly does contribute to the overall picture. It does make for a (pun unintended) perfect storm in the heaviest states like Louisiana.