[davidn20]

Yes, plastic MIGHT be making us obese. But, we definitely know high caloric intake and sedentary lifestyle makes us obese. I don't understand why obesity is such a mystery. People are creatures of path of the least resistance. Developed countries have highly dense caloric food and people are inactive most of the day due to cars and office jobs.

[sp332]

"Developed countries" don't have 40% of high school students clinically obese. Only the US does.

[davidn20]

Yes, it's bad in the US, but obesity is rising worldwide. Obesity, in general, correlates with GDP per capital.

[sp332]

Then why are poorer people more obese?

Edit: still talking about the USA here.

[davidn20]

Poorer people are more obese is only true in richer countries or in countries where the poor doesn’t have to starve. As for why poor people are more obese in well-off countries. Again, it’s the path of least resistance. Poor people are generally less educated and less likely to think long term. It's easier to eat junk food than to put in the time and effort to make a well balance meal.

Btw, I'm not blaming the poor, being poor is hard. I grew up under the poverty line. Overcoming poverty is a huge task and more should be done.

[OJFord]

Availability of cheap crap is much higher in more developed/high GDP countries I suppose.

In extremis, if you only eat what you can grow, rear, and trade for, then you're not eating breakfast ~cereal~ sugar, ready meals, crisps, etc.

It's a bit tangential, but this is similar to how such a lifestyle isn't even cheaper - it's not the only shopping those people can afford - most of my meals probably cost less, because I take an interest in cooking and eating (i.e. I'm buying vegetables not ready meals) but that doesn't mean there's always (or even that often really, especially amortised over all uses) an out-of-reach expensive ingredient.

[tsol]

Go to the dollar store and look at the food there. Everything has sugar in it.(It's also not a great deal due to portion size, but if you don't have much money it's an easy way to get variety). The cheaper the food, the more likely there are cheap sugars meant to made it more palatable

Or look at restaurant/fast food-- the healthier options are the 'premium' options. But if you've got a few buck and want to feed a whole family, a bunch of burgers is still reasonably priced for someone low income

[spywaregorilla]

I haven't been able to find a source claiming higher than 16% for US high school students, fwiw. I wouldn't bat an eye if europe caught up soon.

[sp332]

I think you're right, but the the article says: "In the US, roughly 40% of today’s high school students were overweight by the time they started high school." Not sure what the source is.

[spywaregorilla]

Overweight is a tier below obesity. That's believable.

[aaomidi]

And for me I don’t understand why people think obesity is such a simple problem?

Every single other thing in our body is complex and has chains and chains of reactions and impacts. Why is obesity the single one where the answer is “obvious”?

Anyway I agree that we should change how we design our cities, etc to deal with our sedentary lifestyle.

[TimedToasts]

Eat less? No, too complex. Instead: change how we design our cities.

[aaomidi]

I mean, yes. We have to do the redesign for a multitude of reasons. Including the impacts our current cities have for scalability of various services and growth. Also how it’s fucking our response to climate change.

[tdehnel]

Oh knock it off

[aaomidi]

Knock what off?

American cities are designed horribly. We are a nation of car dependency.