• I’m not saying obesity isn’t a problem

      October 15, 2010 at 3:26 pm
      Aaron Carroll

    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.

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      Health Policy
      health care costs, obesity

    • by Floccina on October 15th, 2010 at 23:36

      we need to do something about it

      First, to quote my Honduras born and raised wife: “we is too many people.

      Unlike infections disease obesity is not a public health problem and other people’s weight is non of my business.

      http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2007/11/fat-and-long-life-obesity-crisis-is.html

      Julie Gerberding, and Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson — to be false. Instead, ‘overweight and obesity’ together were associated with 25,815 excess deaths, with 89,094 fewer deaths associated with those in the ‘overweight’ category. But even ‘obesity’ wasn’t nearly the risks we’ve been led to believe. Nonsmokers with ‘class I obesity’ (BMI 30 to 35 were associated with a mere untenable 12-17% increased risk — still nowhere near those of thin people with 50-69% higher risks. And yes, the researchers had accounted for smoking, chronic diseases and preexisting health problems and cancer, involuntary weight loss and long-term obesity… and the results were the same.

      IMO obesity is not visually appealing and so bias creeps in and we think that it is worse than it real is.

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    • by Floccina on October 15th, 2010 at 23:53

      Also

      Hispanics live longer despite obesity & disabetes. They call it the Hispanic paradox and they can expect to live 80.6 years, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Hispanics beat the life expectancy for whites at 78 years and blacks for 73 years.

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    • by Floccina on October 16th, 2010 at 18:14

      BTW the above article assumes that it is well known that Hispanics are more likely to be diabetic and obese.

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    • by liposculpture guide on January 31st, 2011 at 00:35

      Obesity in childhood is linked to many health complications and tends to indicate the child will be obese as an adult. It is very concerning as childhood obesity is increasing.

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