
More Women Than Men Are Obese in America, and Gap Is Widening (2015) - neverminder
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/11/13/455883665/cdc-more-women-than-men-are-obese-in-america-and-gap-is-widening
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benevol
Here's the main hack:

Do not eat anything that contains sugar.

To start off, try it for just 1 week. You will realize that sugar _is_ a drug
to our brain.

Once you are clean, reduce the "hidden sugar", carbs, to a minimum, and
increase vegetables to reach 60% of the volume of your food.

You'll feel great again.

~~~
sargun
I was totally off sugar for a while. My diet shifted to consist mostly of
meat. Unfortunately, my cholesterol shot up like anything.

Eating vegetarian, or white meat that's quick is very hard to do without
sugar. I eat Soylent, and it's super sugary, but easy to consume. On the other
hand, I've tried a bunch of protein bars / powders, and literally none of them
are savory.

But, yeah, I agree with you, I would kill for an easy, pure vegetable diet.

~~~
crusso
There are low-carb alternatives to Soylent.

Keto Chow is the one I use. I definitely prefer the taste of Keto Chow to
Soylent. It's more like a milk shake. Also, Soylent gave me consistent acid
reflux. [https://www.thebairs.net/product-
category/ketochow/](https://www.thebairs.net/product-category/ketochow/)

~~~
sargun
Ah, but these flavours all still seem sweet. Once I have sweetness on my
palate, I find it difficult to abstain from sugar.

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acconrad
As much as I don't want to excuse or allow obesity, or that the advice in this
thread is extremely applicable in reducing the rates of obesity, I will say
that fat loss for women is indeed harder.

This video[1] explains in greater detail, but essentially all of the hormonal
changes a woman goes through on a month-to-month basis can have drastic
effects on their ability to lose fat, to keep up performance while exercising,
as well as water/nutrient absorption on a week-to-week basis.

These changes do not happen to men, and they are additional considerations
when a woman needs to lose weight. Not that they aren't insurmountable, or
that the topic itself isn't for more advanced athletes, but we can generalize
this to say that it is more difficult for women, so I'm not surprised that the
gap would widen given those additional constraints.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6846ZTBu08k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6846ZTBu08k)

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throwaway13337
Women on average are not always the most obese ones. In some countries like
Norway, Switzerland, Canada, and Italy, it's the men who have the higher
obesity rates.

Interesting to note that Mexican, Turkish, and especially South African women
are quite a bit more obese than the men.

OECD publishes a lot of stats in this area:

[http://www.oecd.org/health/Obesity-
Update-2014.pdf](http://www.oecd.org/health/Obesity-Update-2014.pdf)

Could it be cultural differences? In the countries where the men are more
obese, the average obesity rate is much lower.

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mamon
Women has naturally higher body fat percentage, plus pregnancy and then
menopause are both big hormonal shocks that induce weight gain, so this is
hardly suprising.

~~~
jbmorgado
The study doesn't say they have more body fat. That we already know since
woman are biologically prepared to do so.

The study says that more woman are obese: I.E.: Looking at healthy body fat in
the two genders (where the healthy body fat levels for woman are already
higher then men), more woman are above those levels.

~~~
cauterized
Women may be more predisposed to put on fat more easily, because bearing and
(even more) nursing a baby both add an enormous amount to a woman's energy
needs. Even today, when food isn't scarce, many women lose their "baby weight"
and more while nursing.

Secondly, with less testosterone, women put on and maintain muscle with less
ease than men. Since muscle burns more resting calories than fat, women must
restrict their calorie intake more strictly than men do - even at the same
weight and activity level - if they want not to gain.

~~~
jbmorgado
Ok, again: That is already accounted for when you talk about the healthy body
fat levels for each gender. The study is about people that go above these
levels.

~~~
HowardStark
I think the point he's trying to make is that while the natural level may vary
between genders and be accounted for, they very likely didn't account for ease
of weight gain.

~~~
jbmorgado
Why should they account for the "ease of weight gain"? The study is about
unhealthy fat levels, not if you easily gain more fat or not.

The study conclusion is simple: Obesity in men stabilized, obesity in woman is
increasing.

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jcbeard
Guess we can't have the cake and eat it too. Or perhaps if we do we need to go
for a triathlon. Seriously though, I wonder how much of this is correlated
with our sitting problem, back problems, knee problems that result from a
sedentary + high calorie lifestyle. Stop looking at going to the gym to be
like <insert god-like body reference here> and just get out for a freaking
walk, do some pushups occasionally, maybe a few sit-ups. Even small steps can
improve overall fitness. But yeah....probably a good IoT biz opportunity.

~~~
goda90
I recently learned about a product that clips to your shirt near your neck and
vibrates when your posture is bad. I'd love to see more devices that don't
just track your fitness, but remind you constantly in subtle ways like that. I
know smartphone notifications don't work for me.

~~~
benevol
Or you could learn to live what is often called "mindfully", by practicing
mindful meditation.

This has the benefit of increasing the quality of your life _overall_ (besides
the fact that you don't need to spend money for that).

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notacoward
Quite a while ago, I worked for a bit in Norway. Almost everyone there seemed
fit. When I commented on it, my coworkers said it was kind of an in-joke that
Americans came in two types. There's a small minority of younger fitness
junkies, who often look _unhealthily_ thin, and then a much larger number of
people who are distinctly overweight. I've never seen anything to contradict
that "bimodal distribution" idea. It's one reason that I take diet or exercise
advice based on what worked for one guy in his twenties with a _huge_ grain of
salt (heh). Come back when you're forty, and we'll talk. Better yet, let's try
looking at large-scale peer-reviewed studies of what works and what doesn't
_across ages and genders_ , instead of spreading anecdotes and flimsy
theories.

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Bromskloss
Well, it's going to be either women or men, and it's going to be either
growing or shrinking.

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logicallee
There is a recent movement in America that can be neutrally summarized as
obesity prescriptivism. (I won't use the language either of its proponents or
critics. By the way, I am super-proud of everyone in this thread as of the
time I'm posting - though it's only 9:30 AM East coast, 6:30 West Coast on a
Sunday, so that the quality of responses might drop soon. Let's do our best to
keep it high.)

My recommendation is to be able to opt out, for example via a smart phone
setting that shows that an individual has opted out of obesity prescriptivism.
As a practical matter, for example this may allow them to be shown menus with
500-1100 calorie entrees (or less), whereas obesity prescriptivism would
require that such choices not be shown. I'm careful not to use the language of
either side. These are the facts of the current situation.

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xiphias
It would be so cool to have a high tax on sugar (and saturated fat). It has at
least as much damaging effect as weed. I know it's not the perfect solution
but it would force companies who want to sell in shops to decrease using it.

~~~
ktRolster

      >It would be so cool to have a high tax on sugar 
    

To some degree we have that, with tariffs on sugar coming into the US, which
raises the price high enough that everyone uses alternatives.

~~~
PeterisP
Well, having a tax on one form of sugar while subsidizing another (HFCS) means
that in practice, you have a sugar subsidy that makes it economic to add bad
calories because it's cheap.

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charlesism
We put more pressure on women to diet, and most dietary advice is horse crap.
If your diet consists of "low fat" garbage, and a bunch of fruits/grains...
you _will_ wind up fat. If more men were lost to the "weight loss" industry,
I'm sure they'd be equally as obese.

~~~
gaur
Every time I look at the US food pyramid I'm blown away by what an obvious
unhealthy scam it is. 6 to 11 servings per day from processed grain products?
I don't think so.

The agriculture department should not be in charge of US nutritional
guidelines.

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danieltillett
Isn't the issue the huge numbers of people who are obese, not their gender.

~~~
wongarsu
Sure, but for understanding any issue, looking at demographics is helpful.

Once we see that in some countries one gender is more likely to be obese we
can look for reasons. If we're lucky there's something that causes women to
become obese that we can eliminate.

~~~
charlesism
...and that thing is almost certainly "Diet food"

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colmvp
This article is from November. Why bring this up now?

Anwyays,

> After decades of increases, obesity rates do seem to be flattening out.

> And another note of optimism: The CDC finds childhood obesity has leveled
> off. In many states, as we've reported, obesity rates are falling among
> preschool-aged kids.

Good. Maybe in a few years we'll see a drop?

> Across all adult age groups, about 38 percent of women are obese, while 34
> percent of men were obese.

4% seems like a pretty small gap.

> And, the divide becomes even greater for some women of color. The obesity
> rate among African-American women is 57 percent and 46 percent among
> Hispanic women.

I'm assuming that Asians were the exception? Is it because of genetics? Or
income-level?

~~~
wongarsu
>> Across all adult age groups, about 38 percent of women are obese, while 34
percent of men were obese.

>4% seems like a pretty small gap.

It's just 4 percentage points, but a different way to phrase it is that women
are 10% more likely to be obese than men. That's not a gigantic gap, but it's
still quite significant.

