Summary
A new Lancet study reveals nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, a sharp rise from just over half in 1990.
Obesity among adults doubled to over 40%, while rates among girls and women aged 15–24 nearly tripled to 29%.
The study highlights significant health risks, including diabetes, heart disease, and shortened life expectancy, alongside projected medical costs of up to $9.1 trillion over the next decade.
Experts stress obesity’s complex causes—genetic, environmental, and social—and call for structural reforms like food subsidies, taxes on sugary drinks, and expanded treatment access.
How is walking more not something different?
Well, I meant as in, without actively changing anything, like going to the gym more or whatever. Just passive environmental changes.
I took it to mean that they didn’t go out of their way to walk more, it was simply the better option to get around and so they just did that instead of driving a car. After moving from a car-centric city to one with a metro I totally get it and I do go for walks just for fun.
It’s not just about whether or not you can do something but about how available that thing is. Going for a walk can suck real bad in North America, surprisingly. Things like shitty food being the cheaper option, in a country racing to get its working class to be as disproportionately impoverished as possible, can make it hard to justify getting better quality stuff, too.
Yea it sucks walking next to 6 lanes of high speed traffic and basically no noise restrictions on cars. Once I moved somewhere that I could walk to the grocery store down quiet, tree lined streets most of the way, it became my preferred way. The built environment influences how you travel a lot.
The problem with the car thing is that there is noise reduction on cars. It’s the tires that are making most of the noise you hear from regular cars so even electric vehicles will make more noise than you’d think. It’s always wild to me that my aftermarket muffler isn’t as huge a difference in disruption as you’d think(it’s also not a high-pitch, obnoxious one). Either way I still keep it quiet at night or near pedestrians, and where I live now I’m glad that I basically never need to drive.
I’m real happy to hear that you live somewhere much more compatible with being a human being!
Yes, but there is also little enforcement on extremely loud exhausts and excessive engine revving. People should not be subject to noises loud enough to require hearing protection on a regular basis. Some studies are also finding that car noises in general generate stress responses in humans and long term exposure inreases the chance of some health conditions.
You could also argue road speed and road design should factor in to a noise reduction plan at a city planning level. Cities could enforce lower speeds in certain areas to reduce noise. If the city insists on funneling cars in a certain area they could also be responsible to install sound barriers, maybe even a thin tree line to help buffer noise near residential or certain commerical areas.
Absolutely, though as someone who notices louder exhausts I gotta say that, as much as they stand out, they’re really quite rare. It’s the never-ending drone of tires on pavement, loud cooling fans, heavy diesel trucks, and whatever other clattering and clanging that make up the bulk of the noise. The main street where I live goes pedestrian in the summer and I remember just how much noise a late-ish model Honda Civic made as it drove across it slowly one day even though it’s engine was essentially silent. The contrast between the peaceful pedestrian street and this single, “very quiet” sedan was startling. I already had sorta known but that moment is really where I decided that there’s no such as thing as a “quiet” car.
Our school busses have gone electric, though, and city busses are rapidly being replaced with hybrids that are quiet when they sit or need to accelerate. Those have reduced a lot of noise, and that’s super nice, but again they’re not the bulk of the noise. Removing the worst offenders but keeping the “quiet” cars doesn’t actually help beyond making us feel like we did something. We gotta start making main, commercial streets pedestrian only year-round. We gotta start being aggressive about making public transit accessible. We gotta start building on a human scale.
Indeed that’s what I meant, no intentional going for walks, just organically more walking as taking the train and walking is more convenient than driving almost every time.
And they bought different food too lol. You can buy clean vegetables, proteins and fresh non sugar bread in America. (Not that sliced sugar wonder bread shit). They just apparently chose the junk food (which is wildly available no question about that) when it was put in front of them.
When in a grocery with less of the junk (theres still junk in UK and EU Groceries), they chose better stuff.
Unless they want to make a claim that something like raw broccoli, raw grass fed beef, raw beans are substantially different in the eu. That wasn’t my experience, it’s just more prominent
Like, if you eat processed chips and cookies in America or the EU it’s still junk
Things like shitty food being the cheaper option, in a country racing to get its working class to be as disproportionately impoverished as possible, can make it hard to justify getting better quality stuff, too. Does help that the culture is also pretty bad around that stuff so maybe going to Europe was the moment they were finally taken out of the toxicity of their local community.
Yeah but you’re missing the fact that their shitty junk food is still miles better than the shitty junk food here.
Look at something that is sold in both places and check the ingredients list. The one I’m Europe will have less ingredients and more real food in general, the American one will have a ton of chemicals and other shit
I acknowledged that. I’m highlighting that when presented with that option, the above commenter chose to eat American junk
If you eat 1k calories of excess sweets, it’s the same the world over.
Yes, calories-wise it’s the same, but it’s far worse biologically in the US where the sweetener is predominantly high fructose corn syrup. Not all sugars have the same effect.
Fructose has to be
porridgeprocessed through the liver and causes much higher incidence of non-fatty liver disease, insulin resistance, uric acid causing gout, etc. leading to higher rates of metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease. When someone is ill from these sorts of diseases, they’re less likely to exercise or move around, and will tend to want to eat more convenient comfort foods, which only amplifies the obesity issue.Many of the countries that consume the least amount of fructose per capita are in Europe (Germany, Poland, Greece, Portugal, Finland, etc.)
The article is about obesity, which CICO is the chief, immediate topic of significance. Long term organ damage from different sugar sources is a good topic, but not proximal to obesity in the near term.
Eat too many calories, get bigger. Easy to do when the grocery is packed with junk, but good food is available (and affordable) in both places.
Discussion on food deserts and time-to-prepare are also critical, but again I think present in both continents.
Yes, I covered that. For example, people who are ill tend to exercise and move less. So calories-out (CO) goes down = people get fatter.
So it’s definitely directly relevant.