[dkimball]

So, 100 years ago, this kind of weight was sideshow-worthy (and remember the other things one would see in a circus sideshow...); today, it wouldn't turn heads on a subway.

However: the US has become _more_ health-conscious in the past 100 years, not less. We must have something wrong, if concern for exercise and good nutrition goes hand-in-hand with this kind of obesity.

I think this is due, at least in part, to the drastic reduction of fat consumption relative to carbohydrates; but changes in lifestyle and in modes of entertainment must have something to do with it, too. No one mindlessly eats high-carbohydrate foods while playing poker, after all...

The increase in number of sedentary jobs relative to others probably has a role, too, but it must not be a very major factor on its own; otherwise, there would have been as much obesity among white-collar workers then as there is among everyone today.

There are things that man was not meant to know: not the coordinates of Cthulhu's tomb in the watery depths and the nature of spells to manipulate the Great Old Ones, but the unholy and arcane arts of transistors, CRTs, and low-fat yogurt.

[Edit: typo.]

[david927]

The US has become more health-conscious but also, in the last 50 years, has began to be exploited by manufacturers. Note, this person would be shocking still in Europe.

Chemicals and corn by-products are stuffed everywhere in American products. Even in crazy places like maple syrup and ketchup. I went back to the States at Christmas and we went to an upscale grocery store, yet my wife couldn't find almost anything (yogurt, etc.) that wasn't processed and littered with crap to make it "taste better" and save the producers money. I'm sorry but there is nothing in yogurt that needs corn.

The Heinz ketchup here in the Czech Republic tastes identical to the one in the States, but without any serious additives and no corn products at all. People don't eat fast food and they use natural ingredients. You can't sell GM foods here; it's not allowed.

The obesity in the U.S. is staggering, and what's worse, no one cares enough to force the companies producing it to shape up and stop getting their profit from poisoning their fellow man.

[nollidge]

You're confusing a few separate issues:

1) Cheap, high-yield corn. Upside: cheap carbs. Downside: Probably unsustainable. Crops require crazy chemical fertizilers to support the increased yields. Because it's cheap, people want to use corn for all kinds of crap it's not really suitable for, such as feeding livestock despite it being outside of their normal diet, which has ballooning negative effects (antibiotics, animal suffering)

2) High-fat, high-sugar foods becoming cheaper. Upside: Tastes good. Downside: Not good for you. Higher health costs, greater human suffering.

3) GM crops. Upside: all kinds of stuff. Downside: mostly unfounded FUD.

4) Chemical additives. Upside: longer shelf life, ergo cheaper products. Downside: certain additives are downright scary in doses far greater than normal presence in foods; AFAICT there's not enough research on the long-term effects of the normal doses.

[sophacles]

I'd say 2 and 4 are derivatives of 1. 4, not so much because a lot of petroleum and coal derivatives are used in those chemicals too, but more sugar in stuff is almost always because it is HFCS.

[dnsworks]

A friend of mine has a theory that the rise of depression over the past 20 years has a lot to do with the low-fat diet kick the country has been on, even though low-fat diets have never been proven to prevent obesity or to reduce it. Since our brains are mostly made of fat, maybe low-fat diets aren't the best ideas? I personally eat less fat than most people I know, yet I'm still fat.

[marilyn]

This makes sense with the link between good fats, like Omega 3s, and elevated moods I keep hearing about.

It's really important to recognize the difference between good fats (salmon, avocado, olive oil etc) and bad fats (fries, butter etc). Same is true for good and bad carbs.

[fugue88]

Corn products are stuffed into maple syrup? I think you got that backwards: we stuff a little flavoring into corn syrup and then call it maple!

[eru]

While I share your sentiment about too much processed foot, may I ask what's there to say against genetic engineering?

[Kisil]

Right: how GM foods affect health is an entirely separate question from how processing affects health, yet the two are conflated all the time. I'm sure it doesn't help that the most common wrong reasons for opposing processing (e.g. "getting back to nature") also oppose genetic engineering.

(But processed foot is actually quite delicious.)

[jseifer]

I couldn't agree more. However, even if you were to find yogurt without corn odds are that the cows were fed corn their entire lives. It takes serious effort and commitment to find high quality food in the US, though it is possible.

[philwelch]

"However: the US has become _more_ health-conscious in the past 100 years, not less. We must have something wrong, if concern for exercise and good nutrition goes hand-in-hand with this kind of obesity."

Naturally--as health and fitness became more of a problem, people became more concerned about it.

Anyway, it's not like fatness was totally unheard of: this guy even got himself elected President in 1908, and I don't think anyone with his shape could accomplish the feat today, over 100 years later: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/William_H...

[pw0ncakes]

People here are exaggerating the fatness of the average American. Yes, obesity is an unsightly problem, but the man in that photo would still be a stand-out today-- just less of one. Instead of being someone we'd only see in a circus, he's the noticeably obese fat guy in the line at McDonalds.

He's definitely not sideshow-freak material today, but he'd definitely be the fattest person on an average subway car. I'd eyeball him at 350-400 pounds.

Also, one thing to keep in mind regarding the rightward tail is that, once you cross into the 400+ pound range, you're at constant risk of weight-related death, regardless of age. We can now keep people at that weight alive into their 50s and 60s at 500+ pounds. A hundred years ago, most of them would have died long before getting to the "circus-worthy" range (700+) today.

[smallblacksun]

You also have to remember that the guidelines for what is considered obese was changed in 1998. It changed 30 million people from being considered normal weight to obese.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/guideposts/fitnes...

[ajscherer]

Those 30 million people were reclassified from normal to overweight. People with BMIs between 30 and 31.9 would've been reclassified from overweight to obese, but I see no indication that there were 30 million of them.

[nandemo]

He's definitely not sideshow-freak material today, but he'd definitely be the fattest person on an average subway car.

I don't get your point. He might be the fattest in a subway car, but the point is that there's another like him in just about every subway car.

One hundred years ago the fat guy was (say) 1 in a 100_000; nowadays it is 1 in 100.