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Originally Posted by latinasojourn
people don't realize this yet. nearly half of americans are overweight, and about one third are obese.
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FYI - In the USA, 2/3rds of adutlts are overweight. 1/3 are obese. Scarily, the fastest growing segment of the obese is children, and overweight during childhood statistically means likely to be overweight as an adult. Here's a graph, admittedly a bit old... so the situation has gotten worse since:
All that information can be found
at the CDC.
For the record: These numbers are based on body-mass index (BMI) and using BMI as a measure of health is a very ill fit. It only takes 2 attributes into account (mass + height) and no judgements on bone structure, activity level, musculature or anything else... a guy who's 6'2" + 240lbs who sits on a couch and has a hangbelly is obese by this measure, but so is the 6'2" + 240lbs guy who has 6% body fat and is a total gym nut.
At best, BMI could be used with reasonable accuracy as a measure of change (how many people were at a particular BMI during period X vs. period Y). Since there obviously hasn't been a huge influx of body builders wandering the streets of late, it's reasonable to assume that a majority of bmi delta is due to eating habits.