Summary

A new Lancet study reveals nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, a sharp rise from just over half in 1990.

Obesity among adults doubled to over 40%, while rates among girls and women aged 15–24 nearly tripled to 29%.

The study highlights significant health risks, including diabetes, heart disease, and shortened life expectancy, alongside projected medical costs of up to $9.1 trillion over the next decade.

Experts stress obesity’s complex causes—genetic, environmental, and social—and call for structural reforms like food subsidies, taxes on sugary drinks, and expanded treatment access.

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55 points

How is walking more not something different?

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Well, I meant as in, without actively changing anything, like going to the gym more or whatever. Just passive environmental changes.

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30 points

I took it to mean that they didn’t go out of their way to walk more, it was simply the better option to get around and so they just did that instead of driving a car. After moving from a car-centric city to one with a metro I totally get it and I do go for walks just for fun.

It’s not just about whether or not you can do something but about how available that thing is. Going for a walk can suck real bad in North America, surprisingly. Things like shitty food being the cheaper option, in a country racing to get its working class to be as disproportionately impoverished as possible, can make it hard to justify getting better quality stuff, too.

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18 points

Yea it sucks walking next to 6 lanes of high speed traffic and basically no noise restrictions on cars. Once I moved somewhere that I could walk to the grocery store down quiet, tree lined streets most of the way, it became my preferred way. The built environment influences how you travel a lot.

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7 points

The problem with the car thing is that there is noise reduction on cars. It’s the tires that are making most of the noise you hear from regular cars so even electric vehicles will make more noise than you’d think. It’s always wild to me that my aftermarket muffler isn’t as huge a difference in disruption as you’d think(it’s also not a high-pitch, obnoxious one). Either way I still keep it quiet at night or near pedestrians, and where I live now I’m glad that I basically never need to drive.

I’m real happy to hear that you live somewhere much more compatible with being a human being!

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Indeed that’s what I meant, no intentional going for walks, just organically more walking as taking the train and walking is more convenient than driving almost every time.

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4 points
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And they bought different food too lol. You can buy clean vegetables, proteins and fresh non sugar bread in America. (Not that sliced sugar wonder bread shit). They just apparently chose the junk food (which is wildly available no question about that) when it was put in front of them.

When in a grocery with less of the junk (theres still junk in UK and EU Groceries), they chose better stuff.

Unless they want to make a claim that something like raw broccoli, raw grass fed beef, raw beans are substantially different in the eu. That wasn’t my experience, it’s just more prominent

Like, if you eat processed chips and cookies in America or the EU it’s still junk

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26 points

Things like shitty food being the cheaper option, in a country racing to get its working class to be as disproportionately impoverished as possible, can make it hard to justify getting better quality stuff, too. Does help that the culture is also pretty bad around that stuff so maybe going to Europe was the moment they were finally taken out of the toxicity of their local community.

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13 points

Yeah but you’re missing the fact that their shitty junk food is still miles better than the shitty junk food here.

Look at something that is sold in both places and check the ingredients list. The one I’m Europe will have less ingredients and more real food in general, the American one will have a ton of chemicals and other shit

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-3 points
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I acknowledged that. I’m highlighting that when presented with that option, the above commenter chose to eat American junk

If you eat 1k calories of excess sweets, it’s the same the world over.

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