[magneticnorth]

"The average woman’s waistline today is nearly 4 inches wider than it was in the mid-1990s."

I assume they mean circumference rather than diameter, but this is still a shocking increase in only 30 years. I knew the obesity epidemic was an ever-increasing problem, but this really puts it into perspective. I wonder if we'll ever fully understand the causes behind this rapid shift.

[AlienRobot]

>According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the average waist size is 38.5 inches (98 centimeters) for women older than 20 in the United States.2 This represents an increase of roughly two inches since the 1990s, reflecting broader trends in rising rates of obesity and metabolic conditions.3 Fryar CD, Kruszon-Moran D, Gu Q, Ogden CL. Mean Body Weight, Height, Waist Circumference, and Body Mass Index Among Adults: United States, 1999-2000 Through 2015-2016. Natl Health Stat Report. 2018;(122):1-16.

https://www.health.com/average-waist-size-for-women-11796627...

[altairprime]

There are some theories. Most fresh food in a generic U.S. supermarket has something like 10-25% of the nutrients per pound than it used to a hundred years ago, thanks to soil depletion, so each generation has to consume more pounds of food to get the same amount of nutrients. There’s been long-standing corruption in the FDA “food pyramid” and “recommended daily allowance” systems to bias the U.S. population from recognizing that added sugar leads to obesity. And there’s the advent of chemical non-sugar sweeteners, which in recent decades are turning out to be just as harmful as sugar, only differently. Those may not fully explain obesity, but they certainly are known and understood explanations for obesity — and yet they remain wholly unaddressed.

I think the problem is not whether we’ll fully understand the causes, but more that every cause we have identified to date would require regulating corporations in profit-damaging ways to solve, and it is likely that any future causes we reveal will be the same. That’s anathema in the U.S.: profits are sacrosanct to the two primary political parties, discounting their occasional extremists who argue (correctly) that we should be regulating in favor of consumers, not profits. Typically, the desire for a ‘full’ explanation is used to delay or derail efforts to implement solutions to each single proven explanation, and so I tend to caution against pursuing a complete answer first, and instead recommend asking why we have not yet addressed the known causes while continuing to search for more.

[brianleb]

Similar to a sibling comment,

>>the advent of chemical non-sugar sweeteners, which in recent decades are turning out to be just as harmful as sugar, only differently.

requires citations. People lump sugar substitutes together as one class of drugs, but they very much are not. Some are sugar alcohols, some are glycosides, others are different molecules. Different molecules have different mechanisms of action and paths of metabolism.

Much like one might take a "blood pressure" medication, it is a large umbrella consisting of chemically distinct ACE-inhibitors, ARBs, thiazide diuretics, loop diuretics, calcium channel blockers (dihydropyridine and non-dihydropyridine distinctly), and more. These drugs generally do have class effects, but the class effects from an ACE inhibitor (bradykinin cough, angioedema, etc) are quite different from diuretics (hyponatremia, frequent urination, etc). One person's 'blood pressure medicine' is not the same as the next.

I agree that the prevalence of sugar substitutes in the western diet demands scrutiny, and I am concerned about their effects, however any current research lumping them all together without strict attention to pharmacological mechanisms supported by translational research is worse than useless - it is misleading.

In the sense of what we 'know' about modern medicine, we 'know' almost nothing about sugar substitutes. The body of evidence is vanishingly thin. I want more research into this topic, but right now, it's just not there.

[altairprime]

I'm not providing citations for my tangent here; it's too far off-thread and I'm investing my academic research free time into WtHR instead (see elsethread).

[selfmodruntime]

There is no source supporting your claim of nutrient decline in that magitude thanks to soil depletion. It's mostly due to modern crops that grow tall fast, and are thus mostly made up of water.

[altairprime]

Some argue that it’s instead because we’ve promoted food strains that have more sugars and less nutrients, and I’m still studying that, so I have no position to offer about it yet. Brussels sprouts is a good example of doing this in a way that doesn’t damage the nutritional value, but the general U.S. avoidance of anything pungent or bitter is reflected in having bred out all of the ‘unattractive’ nutrients from our food strains. A good litmus test for this is to check for dandelion greens on the shelves; if present, the market likely sells a broad spectrum of produce that isn’t simply designed to be a sugar bomb; if absent, I’d be shocked if you found anything nutrient-dense at all.

[tirant]

There’s also another element: the shift of women from being stay at home mums to joining the workforce.

In the past there used to be always one family member staying at home and cooking food. That is not the case anymore for many families.

I knew since the beginning how important is to eat home made meals, so I told my wife when we started our family that we would always eat home made food every day unless we were out for another reason. We all have healthy weight levels.

[adrian_b]

Many years ago I have switched to eating almost only food that I cook myself from raw ingredients.

When I eat the food cooked by me, I always eat some fixed portions and I am completely satiated when I finish and until the next meal. I eat only twice, in the morning and in the evening. When I finish eating, I do not have any desire to eat more, even if I consider my food very tasty.

On the other hand in the rare occasions when I eat some industrially-made food, unless the food is bad it is very frequent to be difficult to stop eating, as I am not satiated and I feel the need to eat more. This happens even when eating commercial bread, in comparison with the bread made at home, which does not use any ingredients besides flour, water, salt and yeast.

I am not sure which is the reason. It could be that my food always has an adequate content of proteins and healthy fat, and no added sugar besides some naturally sweet vegetables or fruits, while the commercial food might contain various non-nutritive ingredients and excessive sugar.

[Rendello]

When I'm running a lot, I tend to eat less and healthier,* because I don't want to feel bloated or sluggish during the next run. Junk food loses its appeal to me.

* With the exception of sugar cravings right after a run, which sometimes leads to me buying pop. I don't mind having some every once and a while but keeping it around is a bad idea.

[NewsaHackO]

Someone (not me obviously) should look it up, because I would think that if it was circumference, it would be "4 inches longer" not wider. Because that case, ...wow.

[steanne]

part of it is just raw obesity increase, but part is also an aging population. even if women today WERE the same size as women of the same age 30 years ago, the average over the total population would still be up.

[Legend2440]

Mostly though it's the obesity increase.

40% of Americans are obese, and 75% are overweight. 30 years ago only 20% were obese.

[lloeki]

This is what I was beginning to think around the "nobody's actually hourglass" section.

I thought it would be worth looking at what the definitions are:

https://www.ergo-eg.com/uploads/books/devarajan_full_106_04%...

> Hourglass. A subject would fall into this shape category when there is a very small difference in the comparison of the circumferences of her bust and hips AND if the ratios of her bust-to-waist and hips-to-waist are about equal and significant (Simmons, 2002)

> Rectangle. A rectangular subject would have her bust and hip measure fairly equal AND her bust-to-waist and hip-to-waist ratios low. She would not possess a clearly discernible waistline (Simmons, 2002)

Over here (E.U) I'd say most women definitely would be "hourglass shaped" in some way more than any other shape - maybe some would be a tie with "rectangle" but I'm breaking the tie by saying it's fair to say hourglass does not mean wasp-waist either - so I couldn't reconcile my anecdotal observation from the stated facts until it dawned on me that this was U.S stats.

> One 2007 study found that half of women (49%) in the U.S. were considered rectangle-shaped. Only 12% of women had a true hourglass figure.

OK let's dig data:

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity_adult_07_08/obe...

> Results from the 2007–2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), using measured heights and weights, indicate that an estimated 34.2% of U.S. adults aged 20 years and over are overweight, 33.8% are obese, and 5.7% are extremely obese.

And apparently it's worse for women (35.5% obese) than men (32% obese).

Anyway I'm not sure what "true hourglass" is supposed to even mean (wasp-waist?); according to the definition you got some waistline + balanced hip and shoulders => you're hourglass. If you start using "rectangle" as a fallback when in doubt then of course it's going to rate higher.

Funnily enough the very study linked is a comparison with another country (Korea):

https://www.emerald.com/ijcst/article-abstract/19/5/374/1249...

[magneticnorth]

Ah, yeah, the aging population is a good point.

I can't find a citation now, but I recall reading at some point that weight gain with age (in adulthood) didn't used to happen very much before the obesity epidemic, though nowadays we take it as a given. I wish I could find a source for/against that idea, I'm curious now if it's true.

[tirant]

Increasing weight with age must be an American thing. My observations in my friends circle and family circle outside of US is that we have all kept same size (1 up/down) since early adulthood.