The American obesity epidemic 1989 – 2010

Here is the obesity prevalence in the USA in 1989, as the modern obesity epidemic was just getting started. A few years earlier the fear of fat had gripped the nation, and eating carbohydrates instead was the solution.
Two short decades later, in 2009, the official obesity statistics had changed beyond all recognition. And every year there is a new record. Just recently the numbers for 2010 was released. Do you want to see them?
The epidemic
The disaster is just getting worse. Despite that, the conventional wisdom is to keep doing the exact same thing. The old fear of fat lives on, even though the science behind it is dead. The solution to the obesity epidemic is said to be just “eating less and running more”.
That advice that has been demonstrated to be the least effective in at least thirteen scientific studies of the highest quality. That advice have already failed during the last two decades. Why? Nobody likes being hungry.
Do you have any ideas on how to change things?
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No. This is how bad it is.
One writer (Michael Pollan) had this take in an article he wrote about the changes that are taking place in health care in the US. Now that insurance companies can't deny insurance to people with preexisting conditions, and can't kick people off when they develop an illness, it will be to their interest to investigate what is really making people sick and do something about it. Who knows? Maybe he has a point. We shall see.
I also like the idea Margaretrc mentions of insurance companies taking a serious interest in keeping people well. Right now, it seems like the big money to be made is in getting people fat with junk food and then treating them with "miracle" drugs and surgical procedures.
The height and weight is self-reported using telephone interviews. On average people tend to underestimate their weight under those circumstances. Thus, most likely the massive extent of the obesity problems in the US is still underestimated.
The statistics shown above use the exact same definition of obesity (BMI>30). It's hard not to call it a sudden epidemic.
I agree with most of what Naughton says in his documentary. However I disagree with the part where he downplays the obesity problems. Sure, BMI>30 does not mean a person is necessarily huge. But unless he is a man and look like Rambo it means there is plenty of excess weight.
The 30% in the charts above reference the %of people who are obese, not the BMI.
Can you provide the source of these charts?
The source is at the bottom, under "Reference", it's from CDC. And obesity is defined in the charts as >30 BMI from the beginning in 1985 and on:
http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html
So unless they recalculated the original Obesity percentages from pre-2000 w/the 2000 WHO statistics, these numbers are not accurate.
None of this is saying that we don't have a problem, but I would really like to see confirmation that we're looking at the same set of measurements over time.
Clothing sizes have changed and gotten bigger. What was XXL 3 decades ago has become XL (or even L) to fool us into thinking that we are not as fat as we really are.
Interesting read.
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/weight-loss/changing-perceptions-o...
It they wantet us to eat more greens they could have lowered the vat/sales tax on vegetables but NO OH MY GOD that is impossible in Denmark.
But not is not all bad in the kingdom of Denmark as the Paleo movement is quite strong with a facebook page with just over 10.000 subscribers and the LCHF facebook page has grown to nearly 900 in a month in a country where we are only 5 million people.
Also the most trending books within the eat healthy section is: tadaa paleo and LCHF books which you now can get in most big supermarkets.