I’m not saying obesity isn’t a problem

As I continue to defend my claim that we can’t blame the high cost of the US health care system entirely on obesity, please don’t assume I think obesity isn’t a problem here.  It is, and we need to do something about it.

Try not to overeat this weekend.

Source: OECD data

UPDATE: First, I made the chart easier to interpret.  But Austin asked me for benchmarks.  For the sugar, in 2007, the average US intake was 149 pounds a year, or about 0.4 pounds per day.  For fat, our 2007 intake was just under the equivalent of one and a half sticks of butter per day.

Aaron Carroll

Aaron E. Carroll, MD, MS is co-Editor-in-Chief of The Incidental Economist and tweets at @aaronecarroll. He is the Chief Health Officer at Indiana University. He is also a Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and Associate Dean for Research Mentoring at the Indiana University School of Medicine. In addition to contributing regularly to The New York Times and the Atlantic, he is the author of four books, most recently The Bad Food Bible.

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Aaron Carroll

Aaron E. Carroll, MD, MS is co-Editor-in-Chief of The Incidental Economist and tweets at @aaronecarroll. He is the Chief Health Officer at Indiana University. He is also a Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and Associate Dean for Research Mentoring at the Indiana University School of Medicine. In addition to contributing regularly to The New York Times and the Atlantic, he is the author of four books, most recently The Bad Food Bible.

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