Academia, Society

Study: Half of Adult Population in U.S. To Be Obese By 2030

A study by the Mailman School of Public Health in Columbia University in New York estimates that half of both men and women in the U.S. will be obese by 2030 if current trends continue. Currently, 32 percent of men and 35 per cent of women are obese. Our cousins in England will not be far behind — with rates of obesity of 41-48 percent for men and 35-43 percent for women by 2030.

The increase in obesity will add millions of new cases of diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

It is a shocking and sobering thought for our society.

The study was published in Lancet.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2030563/HALF-U-S-population-obese-2030-experts-predict.html#ixzz1WGGmdwXz

46 thoughts on “Study: Half of Adult Population in U.S. To Be Obese By 2030”

  3. Mike,

    You know, I was reading a collection of James Beard’s old newspaper columns, and he had one about foods for a low salt diet. The book was “Beard on Food.”

    The big problem is that salt enhances flavor so it’s become the go-to way to get away with using substandard ingredients. I bet my salt in-take was cut in half when I switched to home-made foods. Heck I bet switching to home-made stock and soups cut a third out by itself.

    Also, there’s a great style of bread from Tuscany that’s salt free.
    http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/tuscan-bread-pane-toscano-recipe

  4. Sorry W=C… I skimmed…and missed it… (…and you what they say about nice guys (or gals, as the case may be)…. 😉 )

  5. thank you for those links anon, again I am struck by the fact that this is not new news, it just goes unapplied.

    “We have known for over a decade that there is a connection between chronic stress and obesity,” Herbert Herzog, PhD, of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia, says in a news release.’

    So in my book, it may be more factual to ‘blame’ 9/11 or the toxic elections and the recent unravelling of the anti-trust laws and workers rights and conditions for the ‘epidemic’ of obesity. I think people are just incredibly stressed in general…wait till all those clogged hearts and arteries hit our newly trimmed and ‘optimately economical’ healthcare system….

  6. yes, but I wasn’t as nice in doing so as you have been….
    i’m working on that…:)

  8. culheath1, August 29, 2011 at 9:53 am

    Mmmmmmmmm…fat people….they’ll provide something to gnaw on after the fall.
    ——————————————
    ugh, you know, it’s just like sex…..you eat someone, you’re getting everything they ever ate….

    that said, it’s really not *just* the food. It used to be that those living in Perhaps the P’stB could actually LOOK at the studies that show stress as being a positive indicator of obesity and then, when they get really smart, they can see where the current economic zeitgeist coupled with the healthcare crisis, and a bunch of other stuff with a little GMO thrown in…and the percentage of people on meds for depression…well, you can kick the fatties if you like but personlly I’d have a hard time looking at myself in the mirror if I continued to do that and not actually LOOK at what the studies say….in fact, the current toxicity of the political conversation alone is enough to get me running for my pasta…

    ‘Although obesity, like most other chronic health problems, is caused by complex interactions between genetics and environmental factors, the rapid increase in obesity over the past 30 years strongly suggests that environmental influences are responsible for this trend; the conference primarily focused on the environmental component.’

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1247493/

  9. Mike S.,

    I used to do a lot of business in California and In and Out is everywhere out there. While not my favorite dine out hamburger, I’ll have to say it beats just about every other chain for making a tasty burger. 5 Guys is really the only chain competition they have flavor-wise.

  10. Gone are the days of eat, drink, and be merry …

    My downfall is potatoes … any form of potato from French vichyssoise to Irish boxty … and Coke

    I don’t cycle or jog … I walk 3 miles a day, every day, no matter what the weather.

    Never the less I ration my coke to one a week and potatoes to twice a week. And since I can’t have either one today, I am going to stop thinking about it and grab a carrot!

  11. SwM,

    I love chips also. My alternative is Lay’s Ruffles Light. No fat and half the calories. They’re not Cape Cod Kettle Cooked, but they are a satisfying chip with good potato flavor. They also come in a Tortilla Chip that to me is equal in taste to any other. Salsa is a great low fat dip, so if you change the chip you can eat guilt free. In and Out Burger was rated as Number 1 for taste by Consumer’s Report and Five Guys a close Number 2. I bet you know which one got the lowest rating. I’ve never been in a place where there was an In and Out Burger establishment. i’ll have to try it.

    At home I make my burgers with 94% Fat Free hamburger meat, or sometime Buffalo. While I used to use soy sauce, garlic and onion powder to season it, I’ve switched to Worcestershire Sauce because of lower fat content.

  12. If I maintain something close to my goal of 125 lbs I am okay. I am 5 ‘ 5″. I have a small frame so I probably could weigh 120. I only eat Five Guys about once a month and get the small hamburger with no cheese but eat way too many fries. An In and Out burger is opening across the street from the Five Guys so there will be another temptation close by. Chips and salsa are my downfall. My mother was poor after the depression and they ate a lot of soups. Not one of the seven of them was overweight. Cabbage was cheap.

  13. Oh great! Now you’ve guilted me into going on a bike ride this evening. There are hills involved.

    It was 112 yesterday in Austin. On the road that number goes up.

  14. I’ve been exactly 6 feet tall since the age of 13. Throughout my life I have fought being overweight on and off, but that was mostly for cosmetic considerations rather than being obese. The most I’ve ever weighed was
    236 and now I’m in the 180’s. I am amazed when via TV or other media I hear of and see people my height who weigh 300 lbs. and more. My father was a huge 6’3″ and ate 3 robust meals a day. As a car salesman and dealer he had a fairly sedentary job and he never weighed more than 240.

    The obesity epidemic entails much more than people suspect is just overeating. A Five Guys “regular” hamburger, with bacon and cheese (delicious) is 880 calories. With their huge french fry portions we’re talking another 800 calories. the fat content must surpass 30 grams and the salt adds water weight. Eating fast food on a regular basis will make you obese and even McDonald’s Salads are over 500 calories. The problem is that these fast foods are relatively inexpensive and the mass of people have become relatively poorer since the days of Reagan.

    I’ve learned to maintain my weight because I am constantly eating a low fat and low salt diet. Since I do all the food shopping and cooking in my house I can control what we eat and still go out for a nice dinner weekly. Even with that though, I am retired and have the income to shop carefully for foods. Most working people today don’t have the luxury of spending a few hours food shopping and other hours in food preparation. Carefully is the operative word because if you read the labels in the supermarkets and specialty food stores you will be amazed at the contents.

    It is very difficult, even in the best supermarkets, to find foods with both low fat and low salt. Besides affecting blood pressure salt helps the body retain water and affects weight gain/loss. People are also fooled by advertising into believing certain myths about food triggered by words like “light”, whole grain, etc. People are also advertised into hungering for foods that neither taste very good, nor are good for them.

    However, other than truth in packaging I only see that the solution for this is a reintroduction of Home Economics back into schools for both sexes. In this instance though the focus should be on nutrition and health. This becomes problematic since many schools have replaced their kitchens with fast food vendors for student lunches.

  18. So we won’t have to worry about any projected underfunding for Social Security retirement will we. Probably want to get out of the insurance business but betting against retirement looks like a sure thing!

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