I visit family in other states and I get comments like “I can’t believe you are so thin.” For context I am a healthy weight and I eat what I consider a reasonable diet. I sit and smile while I watch them drink soda and eat pure sugar and salt. I don’t care about your life choices but don’t act surprised by someone that’s a normal weight.
That’s just cuz yo mama so fat the color wheel went all the way 'round her.
Coding data in color is a pet-peeve of mine. As a colorblind person, maps like this are nearly useless to me.
Don’t worry, this particular map is just as useless for everyone.
Dark = bad
The green is almost exactly the same in value as the red or orange, whatever that color is.
If it helps, Washington D.C. and Colorado are the only “green” ones.
I don’t see anything represented by the “<20%”, “45%-50%” or “50%+” colors. Not sure why they’re even included.
Thanks, I could kind of tell CO by comparing to those around it, but that’s not an option the way DC is presented.
The first 2 on the legend look darker than the following 3 .
I agree with the zombiepirate. Colour coded maps are useless for about 25% of the population.
Mildly infuriating you didn’t say what’s being measured.
It is in my title
I created this post and then edited it a few seconds later. Apparently the changes didn’t propagate.
Ah yes. I too have 20% obesity.
But what about your state?
Fat explosion
Sure, but what constitutes obesity in the U.S.A.?
It is based on BMI
I first noticed when I went to a Walmart in the Midwest.
I understand it would be based on BMI, but the threshold for obesity varies per country. I remember the health ministry in my country increased the threshold for obesity from 24 to 25 in an attempt to decrease the obesity numbers.
Eventually, BMI only works for “regular” people and not for “sportive” people or “athletes” as muscle is heavier than fat. (A body builder may have a BMI of 26 with little to no fat)
BMI “works” for populations. It was originally designed and characterized to measure populations, and so it’s the perfect thing to compare massive populations, like states. The majority of people are adequately characterized by BMI, just as they are by waist circumference measures. The “outliers” are vastly more likely to pipe up online.
The people who don’t understand what you mean but are obese are more likely to pipe up online.
Sorry, but when people complain about obesity and talk about how easy it is for them to be healthy, all I think about is my brother. He eats more than me and isn’t any more active than me, but hes borderline underweight and can’t keep weight on to save his life. YES, people don’t take care of themselves, I know, that’s not my point. At my most active, most healthy eating part of my life, the best shape I’ve ever been, I was still considered overweight, so forgive me for rolling my eyes at this.
I realize some people struggle more than others.
I’m mostly talking about the extreme obesity.
thats just big boned
Is it possible they’re expressing admiration or paying you a compliment and not trying to invoke your smirking condescension?
Incidentally, according to the most recent CDC numbers, Colorado is no longer “green” on this map, just Hawaii and DC.
There’s only eight states under 30%. West Virgina tops the numbers at 41%.
~75% of the United States is classified as overweight or obese, which is staggering. It has to be pretty unevenly distributed even within states, because I live in a college town in a low-middle-weight state, and very few appear obese, and I’m regularly in a nearby major metro, and I don’t see a ton of obese people there either. Rural children are 10-15 times more likely to obese, so I’m guessing that is probably a major factor as well.
25-35% obesity rates covers like 80% of states, so the US is just fat and getting fatter.
Unevenly distributed, but also statistical bias. Anywhere you go obese people are less likely to be out and about.
A good way to sample is a hospital or Dr office waiting room.
That be the inverse uneven distribution. You want somewhere everyone has to go, regardless of health
Pretty sure healthy and unhealthy people go to the doctors for check ups. In fact, healthy people might be more likely to go to their annual appointment.
An annual checkup is a blip in comparison to the frequency of visits by the unhealthy
I’d expect a county map to more appropriately show the trend. Coastal cities can steamroll stats for a state with vastly disproportional representation. I would expect cities to have lower obesity rates due to increased travel by walking while deep rural counties to have higher rates due to driving everywhere, including on your own property. Perhaps it’s not California and New York that’s doing the right thing, but rather LA and NYC doing the heavy lifting. A county map could also pull in variation correlated to ethnicity of people (genetics, imported cultural norms) and ethnicity/variety of food available, too (can you get fresh fare or is it all McDonald’s?). I would expect DC to be more in line with other large metro counties.
Basically the same issues with the electoral college. States are big and not necessarily a good representation of human statistics. Counties may not be granular enough, but I expect it to be an improvement. I’m not seeing date marked results past 2008.
I have no relevant comments for Colorado, I don’t get it
Agreed. A more granular map would be interesting to see. I mean, something like 65% of NY state’s population live in the NYC metro, which is a tiny part of a deceptively large state.
Re: Colorado, it’s just a relatively healthy state with a general ethos of living well. I think you’re seeing some of the urban effect through the Denver, Colorado Springs, etc. and the addition of rural areas of Colorado still having an outdoorsy culture, as well as (often) affluent rather than “rural poor.” Colorado has one of the lowest rural poverty rates in the United States.
And since Colorado would be in the 25-29.9 category now, it’s comparable to many states that also have comparable rural poverty rates. The fact that the states with the highest rural poverty also have the highest weights makes me assume obesity rates and poverty rates heavily overlap.
Edit: to the point, look at the county map for childhood obesity. You can literally point out almost every major city in the United States.
I think the main problem is that people are eating way to much sugar and salt. The problem is that a lot food you can buy at the store has way to much sugar and salt. Also some people have grown up being conditioned to eat junk like heavy sugar and grease.
Do you have any source for salt casing obesity? I’ve never heard of that being a thing.
It doesn’t cause obesity to my knowledge. It does cause heart disease and blocks circulation.
When I say salt I also mean cholesterol and saturated fat
Anecdotal story about Colorado.
I visited CO a couple of times a while ago for work. I was in my mid 30’s (2007) and fairly fit. I left Cincinnati Airport surrounded by overweight people all around me where I felt pretty good about myself. I arrived in Denver, and suddenly felt like I was on the less fit side of the spectrum.
It was VERY obvious the change. It was not something I noticed / thought about in Cincinnati, but it hit me like a ton of bricks when I landed in CO.
I’ve talked about that experience through the years. I have to watch what I eat, and work to be ‘as fit’ as I am, it definitely does not just come natural or anything remotely like. I drove around / hiked pretty much every moment I was not working and both trips were amazing. Such a beautiful state!
Kentucky: “don’t bother asking”
If you look at the numbers from the state it would be dark red
I’m a red dot in Colorado. 😕
Be the change you want to see
I’d like to see this on county level like voter maps.
Curious how cities and rural look compared to each other within a state, and how rural in low average states look across.
For example is LA just so skinny and populous it hides that rural California is as bad as rural Oklahoma?
The colour scheme exaggerates this a little bit. 20-some isn’t that different from 30-some.
Is this OP’s way of asking the rest of us to send OP holiday snacks ?
Do you need food OP ?
I would like others to care for themselves. Stop slowly killing yourself.
I’m good. I’m a 150 lb six footer. But holiday cookies are still welcome into my hutch. People used to die from just winter coming and starving. Don’t be too disappointed at us for falling for biology.
Enjoy the winter celebrations, my kind OP. And I will continue to work on it, too.
That’s not that bad. I have family who are in the 250-400 range (my estimate)
I’m a pretty healthy person. I work out regularly, this summer biked up to 8 very hilly miles every day and I’ve been actively reducing sugar in my diet. It’s nice to let loose for holidays and indulge in more sugary and savory foods than you normally would. It’s part of the fun of holidays.
Also stop fat shaming. There’s a million and one reasons for people to be fat and there’s a million and one reasons for people to be thin. Would you judge less if you knew your super skinny cousin was only skinny because he starves himself and purges after the pendulum swing back and he binges? Or that your fat aunt was fighting with an idiot rhumotologist who insists the tests he ran that indicate an autoimmune disease which also causes weight gain don’t indicate that same autoimmune disease? Or how about a fat uncle who only eats one meal a day, tons of salads, walks multiple miles but never sees his weight change no matter what? Or your grandmother who periodically goes into an expensive commercial starvation diet so close to the edge you aren’t allowed to excercise in order to lose weight?
These are all real experiences of people I know, and I know these experiences because I stopped to listen instead of jumping to judgment. Of all of the people I know who struggle with either gaining or losing weight I only know 2 people who found changing their diet actually affected their weight
How did CO do that? Free lunch in school? This does not seem to be something you can do by having more virtuous people.
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Get out and go for a hike. That will help immensely.
Colorado has a good set of policies that support consistent and long term public funding of outdoor recreation, such as trails and parks. The level of connectivity among local and regional trail systems is very good and always improving.
I’m wondering what bias there may be for people from a place versus moving to a place. Many have noted the culture of activity in Colorado, and that may be pulling non-obese people from other states to Colorado. Not that it would sway the numbers that much, but as an anecdote, everyone I know in Colorado moved there from a different state and fit, and moved there for activities.
Culture of healthy thinking plus a lot of athletics
Living in a green state can’t be that bad. It’s green!
Walking through the Denver airport, and seeing who lines up at what gates is startling.
In reverse, lining up for Denver from say, Houston.
As someone who moved from california to nebraska, holy shit are people out here severely overweight. Working food service makes you see it way more as well, more often than not they buy about 3 peoples worth of food, sit down, and eat it all for lunch… then complain about the price of course
Why can’t I lose weight? Drinks Soda pop
I think part of the problem is that junk food just doesn’t stick with you. It spikes your sugar and then you crash. You need to constantly be eating to maintain your energy.
