
Only 2.7% of all adults had all 4 healthy lifestyle characteristics - BinaryIdiot
http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(16)00043-4/fulltext
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haywirez
While I would bet that the general idea that few people lead healthy
lifestyles is correct, the study is somewhat misleading, given how they
measured the "healthy" amount of physical activity [0]:

"While attending the MEC, participants were instructed to wear an ActiGraph
7164 accelerometer (ActiGraph LLC) during all activities except water-based
activities and while sleeping. The accelerometer measured the frequency,
intensity, and duration of physical activity by generating an activity count
proportional to the measured acceleration."

and dietary behavior [1]:

"Data from the Dietary Data Collection system were used to compute a Healthy
Eating Index (HEI) score for each study participant. The HEI-2005 [2] was
developed by the US Department of Agriculture as an indicator of dietary
quality. The HEI has 12 components (total fruit; whole fruit; total vegetable;
dark green, orange vegetable and legumes; total grain; whole grain; milk; meat
and beans; oil; saturated fats; sodium; and calories from solid fats,
alcoholic beverages, and added sugars), with each component individually
scored and a maximum total score of 100. A higher score reflects closer
adherence to the dietary guidelines for Americans."

I would guess the number is not higher than the 5-10% range, but 2,7% seems
too low. Let's say you swim 5x a week and follow a ketogenic/low-carb diet,
the study would have you classified as unhealthy. The HEI-2005 [2] is already
outdated (revised in 2010) and it is probably not the "optimal" diet either.

[0]
[http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(16)0...](http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196\(16\)00043-4/fulltext#sec1.3)

[1]
[http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(16)0...](http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196\(16\)00043-4/fulltext#sec1.2)

[2]
[http://epi.grants.cancer.gov/hei/2005/](http://epi.grants.cancer.gov/hei/2005/)

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supercoder
A ketogenic diet is unhealthy

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ethanbond
Ketogenic diets MIGHT be (but almost certainly aren't) unhealthy.

Eating the amount of sugars that most Americans do is _absolutely_ unhealthy.

I know that I feel a billion times better when I reduce my carb intake, even
not to ketogenic levels. Further, doing a ketogenic diet for about a year got
me down to a weight low enough that I could exercise more regularly and
effectively, with fewer injuries. Never mind the emotional health changes
associated with not being an obese 20 year old.

I started when I was 17 and spent a week in one of the top children's
hospitals in the country for unrelated things — all the doctors there were
very approving of what I was doing.

~~~
acconrad
It's not a might, it absolutely is for some. I'm one of them.

I tried keto for close to a year and my blood sugar shot up to being pre-
diabetic. Why was that? Medium-Chain Acyl-CoA Dehydrogenase (MCAD)
Deficiency[1]. It produces an enzyme that is involved in breaking down fat
from food and stored body fat into energy. Because people lack this energy
source, affected individuals must keep their blood sugar levels up by eating
regularly to avoid acute episodes of lethargy, seizures and coma. The
condition can lead to sudden death unless it is diagnosed and proper dietary
interventions are followed.

So when you're keto, eating lots of fat and little carbohydrates, which
doesn't keep your blood sugar up, you can get into trouble.

Is keto unhealthy for everyone? No. Is it healthy for everyone? Definitely
not.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-chain_acyl-
coenzyme_A_d...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-chain_acyl-
coenzyme_A_dehydrogenase_deficiency)

~~~
ethanbond
Yikes that must not have been fun.

Sure, and it's good to be aware of, but I would still classify something that
poses a risk to 0.025% of the population as "almost certainly safe." Anything
could be harmful to 1 in every 4000-17,000 people.

Sorry that happened to you!

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NLips
The study's method by definition places an upper limit of 40% of the
population meeting all 4 requirements:

"Using the average of the 2-day HEI scores, participants at or above the 60th
percentile (ie, top 40%) of HEI scores in the population were categorized as
adhering to the dietary guidelines for consuming a healthy diet."

Regardless of how healthily people do or don't eat, you only have the
'healthy-diet' characteristic if you're in the top 40%.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
I'd be shocked if the 60th percentile American diet is healthy, for any
reasonable definition.

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reifnir
If less than 10% of people have "normal" body fat in the study, is it really
normal? Perhaps that should have been identified as healthy body fat.

~~~
haywirez
Most people are simply too fat and eat too much. Coming from Europe, it often
baffles me what Americans consider "normal".

Edit: not to say it also isn't a problem here/worldwide, it's been getting
noticeably worse over time.

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reifnir
If healthy is atypical and unexpected in a population, then it isn't normal.
I'm pedantically suggesting that healthy is currently the abnormal condition
(and one that clearly needs remediation).

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has2k1
What I would like to find out is; What the survival rate / life expectancy is
for those 2.7% vs the rest of the population?

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wimagguc
My masseuse said during massage yesterday: "Relax! If you can't relax, that's
not good for you."

That's not much help to get relaxed, you can imagine, but nor is the "you're
doing it all wrong" in these studies. I bet that most of these people do
realise that their lifestyle isn't all healthy, but improvement is difficult
with all the noise around.

Which sports should you do, how often is optimal? Which diet is the best one?
Is rice healthy at all? Ask any of these questions from two "health experts",
and feel free leave the scene: they will still be debating the following day.

~~~
djhn
1\. Don't smoke, it causes deadly diseases.

2\. Don't be immobile and stationary all day.

3\. Don't buy food that comes in a plastic wrap or a cardboard box. Make your
own from primary ingredients (vegetables, meats, grains).

You are talking about details. This study, if taken at face value, suggests
people are ignoring the obvious fundamentals.

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afarrell
You've somewhat contradicted yourself with #3. Many primary ingredients are
sold in cardboard or plastic packaging.

Also, #3 requires enough wealth to have the time to spend on it.

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adrianN
Preparing somewhat healthy food takes a few hours a week. It's not so hard
that you need to be particularly wealthy to do it.

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afarrell
You don't need to be particularly wealthy, but it does require you to
allocate:

* Fridge & pantry space for ingredients. This is significantly easier if you are not splitting that space with 2 roommates.

* Time and Executive Function to keep track of what you need to shop for. This is significantly easier if you spend $5 on an app like Paprika. [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paprika-recipe-manager-for/i...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paprika-recipe-manager-for/id406732590?mt=8)

* Money to spend on cooking tools. This is significantly easier if you have friend who also cook and can recommend things.

* Time and skill to spend organizing your kitchen so that you can work reasonably efficiently.

* Time and patience to spend doing a skill poorly because you are learning. This is made easier if you have a snack before you cook dinner because trying to do an unfamiliar multi-threaded task is harder when you are hungry.

* Money to spend on ordering food to be delivered when you fuck something up.

* Time to spend going to the grocery store more frequently for fresher ingredients. This is significantly easier if you own a car or are willing to pay higher rent to live near a grocery store.

* Time to spend actually doing both the cooking and cleaning.

All of this is doable on a software engineer salary, but it does require
making a deliberate decision to allocate resources.

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adrianN
While I was studying I was living on 800 Euros a month. That's 20 Euro more
than poverty level. I had a tiny apartment with a tiny fridge and no proper
kitchen. Making rice or lentils, heating some frozen veggies in the microwave
and frying some meat or opening a can of fish takes about 15 minutes and
anybody can do it. You need a pot, a pan and a microwaveable bowl. Ikea has
all of that for like 50 Euro.

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djhn
It's shocking, especially considering that failing two of those tests
initially requires deliberate effort (smoking and bodyfat), even if after this
point reversal is far more complicated and difficult.

Another two, daily activity and healthy food, have also become "non-default"
behaviour only in the past couple of decades. Consider that increases in free
time (for activity) and the fact that eating a healthy diet has never been as
easy or less costly than now.

Does anyone have similar data for other countries, cultures or regions?

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sethammons
Why do you say that eating healthy has never been less costly? Easy, maybe
(the Internet makes information easier to find and global trade and larger
super markets make it potentially easier to find), but I don't feel that
healthy is less costly. Annecdata: I recall that vegetables and healthier
breakfast cereals were cheaper than junk foods in the 80's. Now, due to mostly
demand, it seems to have flipped. Add to that that the overall growth in the
price of food had outpaced the the growth in household income over the last
three decades (on mobile, hard to find a source), and I begin to understand
how my mostly healthy groceries take up such a large percent of my income. And
if we think of it in terms of healthy vs unhealthy foods and cost, I could
save a lot of money by only feeding the family pasta or processed foods.
Healthy foods costs more than unhealthy foods (excluding potential health
issues).

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djhn
I'm open to being wrong. This would be an interesting point to research as an
economist. You're right in that in the past 50 years unhealthy food has become
relatively cheaper compared to healthy food.

My thought was comparing the cost of a particular balance of nutritional value
from now, to past centuries and millennia. Maybe it doesn't hold for the
economic "golden years" in America from 1950-1970.

My completely arbitrary estimate is that total food costs as a percentage of
total household consumption has plummeted from something like 40-50% to about
2-5%.

Of course, there are regional differences. At the moment, in the developing
world getting enough protein is a challenge. For many historically meat was
prohibitively expensive. But it wasn't so for people close to hunting or
fishing industries.

~~~
sethammons
Man, I wish I spent that little. My family is closer to 20% of household
income spent on groceries, and I make good money, too.

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tim333
Their requirement for exercise was over two and half hours / week of "moderate
to vigorous physical activity" which I guess is running or similar.

I suspect that alone disqualified a good chunk of people.

~~~
dspillett
IIRC a brisk walk (faster than natural walking pace, but certainly not a jog)
qualifies as moderate exercise in many studies. If that is so here then 2.5
hours is not nearly as difficult to achieve as you might otherwise think.
Caveat: I've not read the report so I don't know if they explicitly define
what they mean by "moderate".

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noobie
What are these characteristics?

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rejschaap
From the article:

* Measurement of Physical Activity

* Measurement of Dietary Behavior/Healthy Eating Index

* Measurement of Smoking Status

* Measurement of Body Fat Percentage

I would say number 4 is a bit odd, since it depends on the other ones. But I
guess it is easy to measure.

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guard-of-terra
IMO this looks more like shaming the whole adult population.

Guess what - we're already under stress and shaming us even more will only
cause more unhealthy behavior trying to eat away/smoke away/drink away that
stress.

Just stop.

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djhn
How do you make a child know himself? You surround him with mirrors. "This is
what everyone else sees when you do what you do. This is who everyone thinks
you are."

You cause him to be tested: this is the kind of person you are, you are good
at this but not that. This other person is better than you at this, but not
better than you at that. These are the limits by which you are defined.

If you don't do this to a child, you get a narcissist. If you do this on a
large scale, you get.. well, America. (Paraphrasing the satirical blog
thelastpsychiatrist.com)

~~~
guard-of-terra
Adults are not your children and also they don't owe anything to you.

You get who you get.

