Short Take: A Weighty Question

Not just overweight, but obese. Americans continue to get fatter.

American adults continue to put on the pounds. New data shows that nearly 40 percent of them were obese in 2015 and 2016, a sharp increase from a decade earlier, federal health officials reported Friday.

The prevalence of severe obesity in American adults is also rising, heightening their risks of developing heart disease, diabetes and various cancers. According to the latest data, published Friday in JAMA, 7.7 percent of American adults were severely obese in the same period.

The reasons are fairly obvious. We eat processed, carb-laden, sugary foods, provided they’re gluten-free. We don’t get nearly enough exercise, if you don’t count your finger moving whenever the tone alerts you to a new Facebook “like.”

Well-intended folks have tried their best to help with a regulatory regime that makes total sense at symposia, like requiring the listing of calories on menus or taxing beverages that make children smile. Surely, people will adjust their diets when they realize that a quadruple burger with everything is more fattening than a piece of tasteless but nourishing soylent cardboard.

Public health experts said that they were alarmed by the continuing rise in obesity among adults and by the fact that efforts to educate people about the health risks of a poor diet do not seem to be working.

Evolution likely favored the fat. Storing up nutrition during the hunting season would help us survive during the pecking season. Those with fat genes would survive while the skinny would have to marry well. But in the course of human endeavors, we’ve managed to make obesity obsolete as a survival mechanism.

Is it unhealthy? The docs certainly say so, and I am unqualified to disagree. That doesn’t mean every obese person dies while they’re filming a TV show about them, or that the only healthy weight is 98 pounds, but that obesity likely isn’t a goal to strive for.

But is it a problem to avoid? Is it something that demands action, a fix, such as, oh, losing weight?

There are two ways to address the issue of obesity. The first is hard and unpleasant. For those who have more sophisticated survival genes, it involves diet and exercise which, like thinking, is hard. The alternative is to redefine a desirable appearance by calling fat people attractive. It makes them feel better about themselves, and if people hear that “fat is fabulous” enough, they will buy more donuts.

Of course, there are some wags who argue that no marketing campaign will make fat people physically desirable to others, except for the chubby chasers who always had a kink thing going. The certainty of inclusivity despite these weightists will not overcome the reality of your Saturday night ménage à trois with Ben and Jerry, but at least you can get enjoy modeling in the subways.

Being overweight, even obese, doesn’t make you a bad person by any means. It happens. Some can’t help it and you may contribute to the betterment of society like anyone else. But being delusional about it isn’t the same as being thin, no matter what your pals tell you. Frankly, it’s all the same to me whether you’re a tub o’ lard or skinny as a rail. What isn’t okay is the indulgence in fantasy to make a problem appear to disappear rather than, at least, face up to the fact that obesity isn’t hot, sexy, cool or healthy.

One of the few things Americans struggle with more than weight is coming to grips with harsh reality.

18 thoughts on “Short Take: A Weighty Question

  1. Steven J Schellenberg

    I think that instead of calling it an epidemic and looking for a collective solution we should accept that obesity is a personal problem that can only be solved by individuals taking control of their own bodies.

    1. SHG Post author

      Individual responsibility makes people sad, as if the consequences of their choices are their own fault.

  2. Skink

    “We gotta do something about fat people.” No “we” don’t. And while they’re not doing that, they can keep their lotioned and disinfected hands off my Whopper.

    Today, “I Hate Everything”–George Strait.

  3. Jyjon

    Damn you’re mean today. Going after peoples respectable sexual proclitivty, why do you want to be in their bedrooms? And then bashing fat xem, skinny ver, faer who climb on rocks, big per, little hir, even faer with chickenpox. It’s like you’re from the ‘bash them all and let god sort em out’ school of curmudgeoning?

        1. B. McLeod

          Apparently, turtle doctors don’t give that “make sure your heart is healthy enough. . .” warning.

  4. David Meyer-Lindenberg

    This whole post was a vehicle for linking to the Meghan Trainor song, wasn’t it?

  5. Casual Lurker

    While most want to reduce it to “eat less, exercise more”, it’s a complex problem, especially in the context of an evolving information/automation society. While some have won the genetic lottery, others have been dealt a bad hand that doesn’t lend itself to any of the presently available weight-loss means.

    For example, Native Americans, in general, have been shown to be genetically predisposed to a distorted carbohydrate metabolism. In addition, studies have shown that they burn far fewer calories for a given amount of exercise. (For a long time, it was always assumed there was a fixed conversion efficiency from various energy sources to a calorie — a unit of heat. We now know this is not always the case).

    For those with distorted metabolisms, counting carbs usually works out better. But the brain alone, for anyone doing non-rote activities, needs a minimum of 1000 calories in the form of glucose. And if it doesn’t get it, it will be screaming “send up the candy!” Thus, even the most disciplined among us has trouble maintaining non-ketogenic, carb-restricted diets, long term. (And doctors that publicly advocate ketogenic diets, in spite of the data, find themselves attacked and called before Congress to be dressed down, as was the late Dr. Robert Atkins).

    In any case, for those not dealt a good hand, unless your job involves adequate physical effort, or you work for one of those “enlightened” infotech companies that have a gym that you can use during the workday, you’re most likely SOL!

    Of course, there are many other barriers to weight loss, and I can barely scratch the surface.

    But fret not, as the drug companies are working hard to overcome the genetically programed predispositions. They relentlessly pester doctors looking for suitable study participants. Whether they’ll beat evolution to the punch is anyone’s guess.

    1. SHG Post author

      Reminds of the transgender arguments where there is always somebody who raises “what about intersex?!?” Nobody said count calories versus carbs, so problem solved.

  6. B. McLeod

    Well, Admiral, I can only suppose you must very well be banned from some of the same venues as myself. I suspect the actual reason my Peeps dioramas have become Peepsona non grata in certain circles is that my female characters are better looking than many actual women, including all the editors at certain websites.

    1. SHG Post author

      You had to go there? They are lovely people, and unless you’re giving Fabio a run for his money, let’s leave appearances out of it.

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