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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32962 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023

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I am increasingly adopting this belief. Willpower didn't just collapse, nor did activity levels. There is something in our food or environment that is making people having a higher set point. In the 1970s or in modern-day Taiwan most people don't struggle to maintain a healthy weight. But in the modern day U.S. most people will be overweight because it is very difficult to maintain a weight lower than one's set point. Not impossible, of course. Just not worth it for many people.

On the other hand, semaglutide and other weight loss drugs will fix this for wealthy people within in the next decade, so I expect being to fat to become even more of a low class signifier than it is already.

weight loss drugs are the future. i see no other way out unless we get better fat substitutes. most of the calories come from fat

Physical activity did collapse, though. Combine high caloric intake with very low physical activity and voila, everyone is fat.

Can't find the citation, but I believe that's not actually true, at least for U.S. adults since the 1970s?

Iterestingly, the average BMI of Japanese people doesn't show (Top left graph is men, top right is women) any sort of change in direction or strength of a trend during the 1970's, but does paint a steady increase in BMI of men of all age groups, and quite a complicated picture for women.

If I'm reading these graphs correctly, Japanese men have been getting fatter since the early 1960s while Japanese women have generally not. Interesting dichotomy. Potentially there is more social pressure for Japanese women to be skinny? Certainly, in Japan, the standards for feminine beauty are far above what they are in North America.

Nevertheless, Japan does not have an obesity problem. With only 4.3% obesity in 2016, it is in fact the LEAST obese of any developed country in the world, and less obese than almost all the poor starving countries as well.

So even though Japanese BMI has apparently been increasing since about 1960, it's not having nearly the effect it is on other countries. I wonder what their corn product consumption looks like?

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