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CDC: Americans Getting Heavier, Average Woman Weighs As Much As 1960s Man

schwit1 writes: New statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the average American has packed on the pounds in the past 50 years. Both men and women have gained a considerable amount of weight since 1960, with the average American woman now weighing 166.2 pounds — nearly identical to what American men weighed in the 1960s. U.S. men have been getting bigger too, gaining nearly 30 pounds from the 1960s to 2010 — 166.3 pounds to 195.5 pounds today. The good news is that both sexes have gained almost an inch in height since then, so that accounts for some of the overall weight gain.

409 comments

  1. The average american hasn't been alive 50 years. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I call bullshit again.

  2. Re:So what's that in metric? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No really, tell us how you REALLY feel.

  3. Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 3, Informative

    It should be noted that the average US male (5'10" vs. 5'8") and female (5'5" vs. 5'3") in 2015 are both two inches taller than their 1960 counterparts. Based on the cube law, you'd expact the average female weight to have increased almost 10% as a result ((65/63)^3 = 1.098).

    Increased height accounts for more than half of the weight gain noted in the study.

    1. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by rockout · · Score: 5, Funny

      I know you don't read the article in your giddy rush to get first post, but christ, that exact point was made in the fucking summary.

      --
      I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
    2. Re: Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder what the other half is.

    3. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by rahvin112 · · Score: 1

      I know you didn't read the fucking post you were replying to but the OP pointed out that people have actually increased in height 2 inches, not one as claimed in the summary.

    4. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Increased height accounts for more than half of the weight gain noted in the study.

      And what about the other half? I'll, tell you Fat chicks.

    5. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anubis+IV · · Score: 1

      As others points out already (and someone else even beat me to parroting your own line back at you), he's suggesting it's greater than the summary said and that it accounts for far more than the summary was giving it credit for.

      Moreover, in looking through the data for the last 30 minutes, I have yet to figure out where the CBS article is pulling their numbers from, since they linked to a very general page, rather than one with specific details, and the only weight data I can find either doesn't go back that far, doesn't contain any specifics (i.e. it'll give overweight/obese/extremely obese percentages, but no exact weights), or doesn't provide any averages based on gender. I'm guessing the data is in there somewhere, but darned if I can find it so that I can verify any of the claims being made by either side.

    6. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Rinikusu · · Score: 2

      Yes, but at 385 pounds, you're not getting away with blaming that on an extra inch in height...

      --
      If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
    7. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by MattskEE · · Score: 1

      It's not clear to me that the cube law is applicable. The cube law comes into play when all three linear dimensions (height, width, and depth) are changing by the same factor, so you are assuming that a width and depth (or girth) increase proportional to height increase is all healthy weight.

      While this may be true it's something that needs to be examined in more detail to see how healthy weight is a function of both girth and height.

    8. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by quenda · · Score: 1

      What cube law? Humans are not cubes.
      For adult men, a healthy waistline is almost independent of height. And BMI is based on the square of height, as a more accurate model.
      Just look at the old family photo albums, if you think people are not a lot fatter now.

    9. Re: Comparing apples to miniature oranges by robi5 · · Score: 1

      In the meantime, unless there is study to the contrary, the cubic ratio is the most reasonable assumption to go by, especially around the population mean or median.

    10. Re: Comparing apples to miniature oranges by robi5 · · Score: 1

      No need to be cubes, it's sufficient to be in 3D. Also, I don't think it's healthy for a 2m person to have the same girth as a healthy 160cm man who is thin or just right even for his height.

    11. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      bigger tits.
      average bra size has increased too.

    12. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try almost 14" above average height for males. 5" above my father's height. My youngest brother is 19" above average. I like this math!!

      (79/65)^3 = 1.795. 79% large than average.

      So 195# * 1.795 = 350#!

      I am right at my right weight. Who needed that Gastric Sleeve!! Now, not worried to get down to my right weight of 275#. I am prefect!

    13. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Moreover, in looking through the data for the last 30 minutes, I have yet to figure out where the CBS article is pulling their numbers from, since they linked to a very general page

      Because it's great grand fun to call 'murrikkkans fat stupid racist sexist retarded rednecks who cannot do a damn thing right. Even by other 'murricains.

      That kinda answers everything. Don't need data for that, Just envy or self loathing.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    14. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Nethemas+the+Great · · Score: 1

      I thought humans were getting more spheroid? Cubes indeed...

      --
      Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.
    15. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cube law ... because spherical approximation works so well on modern americans?
      *ducks*

    16. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by yincrash · · Score: 1

      Yeah, they linked to the wrong page. 2010 data: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastat...
      1960 data comes from a 2004 study here:
      http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/a...

    17. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Whiteox · · Score: 1

      Not that I can see in the series and movies that come out of the US. The amount of small titted women is amazing. No sir, I don't like it.

      --
      Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
    18. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      Increased height accounts for more than half of the weight gain noted in the study.

      And the other half is a glandular problem.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    19. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      Because it's great grand fun to call 'murrikkkans fat stupid racist sexist retarded rednecks who cannot do a damn thing right.

      And you've got a three in five chance of being right!

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    20. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Funny

      bigger tits.

      Unfortunately, they're mainly on men.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    21. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Foobar+of+Borg · · Score: 4, Funny

      Based on the cube law, you'd expact the average female weight to have increased almost 10% as a result ((65/63)^3 = 1.098).

      Increased height accounts for more than half of the weight gain noted in the study.

      So, you started your analysis by assuming a spherical human?

    22. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      actually, first post was mine by a considerable margin, a more valid point, and the inevitable loneliness that follows.

    23. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square-cube_law

    24. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by quenda · · Score: 1

      No idea what the AC is trying to say there, but there is some relevance in the last section 'Biomechanics' and a link to : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      Animals, including people, do not scale isometrically, ie no cube law.

    25. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      quenda: "What cube law?"

      AC: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square-cube_law"

      quenda: "No idea what the AC is trying to say there"

    26. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When there is "http" at the beginning, it means it is a link you can go to that will (at least supposedly) answer your question.

    27. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by quenda · · Score: 1

      OK, I guess English is not the AC's first language. The question was rhetorical and idiomatic. See the sentence that came after it.

    28. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was Adolph Quetelet of "average man" fame who came up with that term based on stuff Galileo came up with. Do I not speak English or are you just out in the deep end without taking swimming lessons? This is info that has been around for hundreds of years.

      Galileo advanced the concept that maintenance of the same relative bone strength, resistance to elastic buckling, bending, and torsion across animals differing by orders of magnitude in body mass requires proportionally thicker bones. The observation that mammalian skeletal mass scales to weight with powers greater than one is seen as consistent with this theory (28). Weight and bone in our subjects respectively scaled to height~2 and height~2.3,a small difference but one that is consistent with observations in mammals as a whole.

      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2729090/

    29. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by l810c · · Score: 2

      It All starts with Sodas, but I am not sure where it goes from there.

      I have just returned from our community swim meet. Kids drink multiple sodas and get heavy and swim slow.

      Kids drink water with the occasional small portion of soda stay lean and swim fast.

      My wife and I have observed this for the past 12 years at our community pool with ~400 members. Slim kids drink water mostly, heavy kids always have a Coke in hand. 24, 32, 48 oz behemoths.

      Years ago when I went to school there were the couple of Fat Kids. Now MOST Kids are Fat. And they are always drinking Sodas.

    30. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by quenda · · Score: 1

      Your English is OK, but you misunderstood my native idiom.
      Your quote agrees with my point - weight of mammals does not increase with cube of height as Stormy Dragon said, but with the square. Hope that is clear now. We agree!

    31. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry for being a dick. Ok.

      The square cube law refers to "the relationship between the volume and the area as a shape's size increases or decreases"[1]. We are talking about weight (mass*g)[2] vs height. Now imagine the human body is made up of a few constituents with certain densities, they are relatively constant but differ somewhat between obese and non-obese. How would you estimate surface area and volume given the information weight and height?

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square-cube_law
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weight

    32. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by ArsonSmith · · Score: 1

      So in your world view , Sodas are the great satan? It's not uncommon to have the belief.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    33. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      So, you started your analysis by assuming a spherical human?

      Give it another 50 years and it would be a safe assumption to make.

    34. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by abies · · Score: 1

      So, you started your analysis by assuming a spherical human?

      If you eat enough pies, it can be true.

    35. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well looking at the modern man compared to the man of 50 years ago, I would say humans are evolving to cubes. I for one welcome the new Homo Sapiens Cubucus whose waist is a wide as his length.

    36. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Cube (and square) laws apply to isotropic scaling of objects of any shape.

    37. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To be fair, when I've been in the US many humans appear spherical!

    38. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is why the BMI is bullshit. We are not cubes, but we are certainly not as thin as sheets of paper.

    39. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by turbidostato · · Score: 1

      ...And his name was Oblongus, which in the native tongue means "Thou, That Are Wider Than Taller"

    40. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "They" put high fructose corn syrup is all your food. You think not poisoning your nation would be part of the PATRIOT Act. I still want to visit. Man Vs Food looks awesome. I'll stay away from the soda when eating a 5kg steak mmmmm.

    41. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, the study is about Americans, who are pretty much spherical these days. So yeah.

    42. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "They" put high fructose corn syrup is all your food. You think not poisoning your nation would be part of the PATRIOT Act. I still want to visit. Man Vs Food looks awesome. I'll stay away from the soda when eating a 5kg steak mmmmm.

      The PATRIOT Act poisoned Democracy itself. Nevermind the food supply.

    43. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by necro81 · · Score: 1

      So in your world view , Sodas are the great satan? It's not uncommon to have the belief.

      Sodas are not exactly the great Satan - it is difficult to ascribe morality or cunning evil to a beverage - but they are the single most easily identified and avoidable cause of the problem.

      If soda consumption returned to 1960s levels (i.e., 8-12 oz per serving (250-350 mL)), the collective weight of the U.S. population would immediately begin to drop. As a conservative estimate, the weight loss would be 1.5-3.0 million metric tons (5-10 kg per capita, but with a very uneven distribution). I would also hazard that a few million people in the U.S. would avoid Type II diabetes and all the morbidity that comes with that, ultimately saving some hundreds of billions in unnecessary medical costs. In that sense, soda contributes heavily to shortening peoples lives and throttling our economy. Killing us and robbing us; maybe soda really is evil?

      Come to think of it... the market capitalization of Coca-Cola is about $175 billion. For that price, the U.S. government should buy them out and shut them down - an investment that would easily pay for itself via reduced Medicare/Medicaid costs over the next generation. It's total fantasy - neither markets nor politics play that way - but that is the scope of the problem and solution.

    44. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Talderas · · Score: 1

      Weight loss will help reduce bra size average.

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
    45. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      If soda consumption returned to 1960s levels (i.e., 8-12 oz per serving (250-350 mL)), the collective weight of the U.S. population would immediately begin to drop.

      I am assuming (ok, so I'm not really assuming any such thing) that you have some sort of, well, evidence to back up this assertion?

      Personally, I'd bet that complete lack of diet sodas in the '60s means that the reverse is just as likely.

      Especially given that it's pretty easy to drink 2 12oz sodas rather than one 20oz soda....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    46. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Man, I'll tell ya what - I spent 5 minutes licking it & nothing happened. But yeah, since you say it is a link, I'll go spend another 5 minutes clicking it.

    47. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by master_kaos · · Score: 1

      which would be a poor investment, because then pepsi would just completely replace coca-cola.. And if you bought them out then some other third party would rise.

      Not to mention "healthy" drinks like fruit juices often contian just as much calories and sugar as soda does. Sure 100% orange juice may contain more micronutrients than a soda, but it is pretty much just as unhealthy as a soft drink... Actually looking iat it it is WORSE.. contains same amount of sugar, and MORE calories than an equivalent amount of coke.

    48. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by thejesses · · Score: 1

      that exact point was made in the fucking summary.

      To be fair, it was near the bottom of the summary.

    49. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Rockout - Chill out. Have many friends with a shitty attitude like that?

    50. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Pergatory · · Score: 2

      To counter your anecdotal evidence with my own, I drink way too much soda, probably 4 cans a day average, maybe more. On weekends probably more like 6. It's ruining my teeth. I have done this pretty much my entire life and I'm 34 years old now. I'm 5'10 and weigh 140 lbs. Despite not exercising regularly (I need to get on that), I'm still quite healthy. I simply have something most Americans know nothing about: food intake control. When I get full, I stop eating. I don't stuff every scrap on the plate into my belly. When I'm thirsty, I drink a mouthful at a time, not gulp down half a liter in one swig. Basically, I allow my body to communicate with me how much nutrition it needs, and I actually listen to it. That's all that is needed; listening to your body. There is not one single thing, such as soda, causing obesity in America. It's systemic. It's a culture problem. We have a fat culture. "Finish everything on your plate" is the motto of American well-to-do families who can afford to put way too much food on the table. Hell just look at serving sizes at any restaurant in America. You can't buy a meal that is sized for a person who is less than 180 lbs. I frequently buy "small" meals and throw away 1/3 of the food I get.

    51. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by necro81 · · Score: 1
      Consumption of Sugar Drinks in the United States, 2005–2008

      "Overall, males consume an average of 178 kcal from sugar drinks on any given day, while females consume 103 kcal."

      (Nutritional calories (the kind listed on food labels) are equivalent to kilocalories (of the thermodynamic type). I'll use the more coloquial "cal" for the nutritional measure rather than the thermodynamic measure.)

      For the purposes of estimating, let's call is 140 (nutrional) cal/person/day.

      From a weight loss standpoint, you generally need a caloric deficit of 2500 cal to burn off one pound of fat (approx 500 g). If the consumption of sugar drinks (their definition includes sports drinks, sweetened juices, Kool-Aid, etc.) were cut in half, that would be 70 fewer calories per day per person, or about 25000 cal/year. That represents a weight loss of about 10 pounds per person in the first year.

      As for the other aspect of it, soda consumption today versus the 1960s, here at least is one datapoint (Fig. 1): in the 1967, soda production was about 200 12-oz can equivalents per person per year; in 2004, it was about 400.

      I stand by my earlier point: if soda consumption today were more like the 1960s, a lot of people would lose a lot of weight, and about as much as I estimated. So, yes, unlike many Slashdotters, I am not merely speaking hyperbolically out of my ass because I want the world to be that way.

    52. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by necro81 · · Score: 1

      which would be a poor investment, because then pepsi would just completely replace coca-cola.. And if you bought them out then some other third party would rise.

      Which is why I added "It's total fantasy." I was not making a policy prescription - I was making a scale comparison.

    53. Re: Comparing apples to miniature oranges by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      And yet BMI is calculated using a square ratio (weight/hgt^2).

      Which is why it produces odd results for exceptionally tall or short people.

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    54. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      20 oz Coke is 240 Cal, 65g sugar (https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/coca-cola/coca-cola-classic-(20-oz))
      20 oz Pepsi is 250 Cal, 69g sugar (http://origin-www.pepsicobeveragefacts.com/Home/Product?formula=35005*26*01-01&form=RTD&size=20)

      And Pepsi's market cap is $137.85B, so a better bargain. Pepsi co also includes Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, which I am sure are high calorie places too. That won't help all the people put out of work by this idea though. I say we should encourage more kids to drink water, and maybe teach kids that tap water is healthy (it is less unhealthy than nearly any other sources...).

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    55. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Whatcha up to Norm?"
      "My ideal weight if I were eleven feet tall."

    56. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lol, GJ using the average height for females in your calculations for males. Spoiler: you're still 70 pounds overweight.

    57. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by morphotomy · · Score: 1

      You realize that can of coke is 138 calories. For of them comes to 552. If you're getting that many empty calories and not gaining weight, odds are you're deficient in one nutrient or another. There is nothing in the soda that makes those calories worth having, and balancing a diet around that much sugar can lead to malnourishment. Also DYEL bro?

    58. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Totally fucks up my afternoons on the beach.

    59. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The "cube law" does not depend on the shape of the object being considered. It is only required that the shape stays the same.

    60. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by Holladon · · Score: 1

      It's worth adding to what you've said that the consumption of sugared drinks is an average. That means that it's counting people like me in the study - I'm below the average sugared-beverage consumption amounts (I don't drink soda, period, having completely cut it out of my diet ten years ago and never looking back), which means I'm bringing the average down. I know I'm not the only one either, as my husband also falls below the average (no soda for him, no soda in the apartment - and if we ever have kids we don't intend to change that either), and I know plenty of other people who don't drink soda. The average person who drinks soda almost certainly drinks more than the 178/103 calories' worth per day. So I would posit that the effects would be even more pronounced, at least among the soda drinkers.

      That said, of course, it's also true that I/others like me wouldn't lose weight as a result of overall reduced soda consumption - but I'm already below the average weight anyway, and come to think of it, so are most of the non-soda drinkers I know (at least as far as I can tell - although some who probably are heavier also get some of that increased mass from lean muscle). Not necessarily a causative relationship, but at least I don't have to worry that I'm dragging the average upward.

    61. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      Humans do not work that way! It's like font scaling where larger sizes are proportionally slimmer, if you want a geek analogy. The body mass index is mass/(height squared) for a reason, not height cubed. Of course, the square law isn't precise by any means, starting with the fact that healthy humans come in many different shapes and proportions.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    62. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      Depends on what fills the bra. Weight loss will not reduce the amount of silicone.

    63. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by gzuckier · · Score: 2

      I know you didn't read the fucking post you were replying to but the OP pointed out that people have actually increased in height 2 inches, not one as claimed in the summary.

      Well, obviously. In 1960, I wasn't even 5 feet tall. Now I'm more than a foot taller, obviously I'm going to be heavier.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    64. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      It All starts with Sodas, but I am not sure where it goes from there.

      I have just returned from our community swim meet. Kids drink multiple sodas and get heavy and swim slow.

      Kids drink water with the occasional small portion of soda stay lean and swim fast.

      My wife and I have observed this for the past 12 years at our community pool with ~400 members. Slim kids drink water mostly, heavy kids always have a Coke in hand. 24, 32, 48 oz behemoths.

      Years ago when I went to school there were the couple of Fat Kids. Now MOST Kids are Fat. And they are always drinking Sodas.

      Yeah, sugary drinks are the main way we get excess calories in. You can cram a lot of sugar in in solution without getting filled up, compared to even just eating raw sugar with a spoon.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    65. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      It's not clear to me that the cube law is applicable. The cube law comes into play when all three linear dimensions (height, width, and depth) are changing by the same factor, so you are assuming that a width and depth (or girth) increase proportional to height increase is all healthy weight.

      While this may be true it's something that needs to be examined in more detail to see how healthy weight is a function of both girth and height.

      assume a spherical human...

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    66. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      I grew up in Canada. You could tell the American tourists, not by their outfits or behavior, but by their sheer size. However, that is impossible nowadays.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    67. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      I thought humans were getting more spheroid? Cubes indeed...

      It's part of our drive towards combatting AGW by increasing energy efficiency. It's well known that a sphere is the most efficient shape in terms of retaining energy, that's why Eskimos are more spherical than Watusis.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    68. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      bigger tits. average bra size has increased too.

      For men too, as a trip to the beach will demonstrate.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    69. Re:Comparing apples to miniature oranges by necro81 · · Score: 1

      The linked-to article from the CDC accounts for that. In Figure 3, you'll see the heavily skewed distribution of sugar-drink consumption. About 50% of the population (myself included), consumes zero on any given day, but it goes waaaaay up from there. The 178/103 cal value I used is the average, reported by the authors, across the entire population.

      I would argue, however, that this does not change my math, since I'm talking averages. If half of the population isn't drinking any, the way to cut the average consumption in half is for those that are doing the drinking to have a commensurate decrease in their consumption. The ones most affected by drinking would also be most affected by cutting back. (As you have said.) While the half that isn't consuming these drinks would see no weight loss because of others' cutting back (although there's evidence to suggest that your own weight is influenced by the weight of your friends), the ones that are drinking would see more substantial weight loss (and boy do they need it).

      Again, on average, the math works out in the way that I have described

  4. Bizarre time intervals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What is with this?
    The plot uses 1971–1974, 1976–1980, 1988–1994, 1999–2000, etc. They obviously have the actual years of measurement. Are they just aggregating due to small amount of data instead of putting error bars?
    http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity_child_11_12/obesity_child_11_12.pdf

    Honestly, what is going on over there?

    1. Re:Bizarre time intervals by antiperimetaparalogo · · Score: 3, Informative
      --
      Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
    2. Re:Bizarre time intervals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe Global Weight Gain is a result of Global Climate Change, or more likely an adaptation. Nature is adapting us to what is needed for coming environmental changes. Time for you nutty scientists that want to perform a pre-emptive terra-forming to lay off and let nature take care of nature.

    3. Re:Bizarre time intervals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Can you link to precisely the data you think is relevant to US obesity? I only found a dataset going back to 2003.

    4. Re:Bizarre time intervals by antiperimetaparalogo · · Score: 1
      --
      Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
    5. Re:Bizarre time intervals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry, this is not the data I am looking for. *waves hand*

    6. Re:Bizarre time intervals by antiperimetaparalogo · · Score: 1

      I am sorry, from what i understand you want "USA overweight/obesity historic data" (other than CDC compilations) - i know very well that they do exist (in various forms, both for male AND female *adults*), for example you should try searching US military sources if you have access (i am Greek, i can't help in that!).

      --
      Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
    7. Re:Bizarre time intervals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I want just a table with weight, height, year, etc (whatever else they think is important to make their argument) for the years they collected data. Is that so crazy?

    8. Re:Bizarre time intervals by antiperimetaparalogo · · Score: 1
      No, it's not crazy, i understand your wish now, and it is rightfull - but you you already gave the answer with this "they just aggregating due to small amount of data". Those kind of data are collected by various sources (some may have been collected by indirect sources, e.g., USA army reports), the compilation is done with a "let's hope we would not have someone asking for the raw data" and the methodology is at least problematic (if you only know how these WHO data are collected and compiled...).

      I am afraid that you would not find good quality historic data my friend!

      --
      Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
    9. Re:Bizarre time intervals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I know you're new-ish here, so a piece of friendly advice: If you're going to mention being Greek in your sig (not directly, but when people say excuse my English, I am better with _____, it is obvious that ______ is their native tongue and while English as a native tongue does not make you English, Greek as a native tongue tends to make you Greek), you don't need to (quite regularly, no less) mention it in your posts.

      I've noticed quite a few people dismiss you out of hand for this & similar idiosyncrasies when you often have something useful to add to the conversation.

    10. Re:Bizarre time intervals by rossdee · · Score: 1

      Climate change is responsible for some weight gain.

      If its cold you burn more calories just to keep warm

      If its hot, then its too hot to exercise (unless you have an air conditioned gym.)

      If its hot you drink more, and the calories in the drinks add up.

    11. Re:Bizarre time intervals by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      Well, this past winter was colder than any I remember in the Eastern US...

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    12. Re:Bizarre time intervals by antiperimetaparalogo · · Score: 1
      I really appreciate your (good) advice my friend, and understand it very well, but: a) anonymous can not read my signature b) as a (Greek) NATIONALIST i *want* to emphasize cultural differences (not only between "Greeks and barbarians" but between any nationality and others) that exist among people and effect most discussions (even about systemd?!) - it is impossible to avoid that "love" i get from fellow Slashdoters because most Slashdot's discussions are not about systemd and similar technical issues but about politics and stuff like that!

      But anyway... thanks for getting in to the trouble of "warning the new kid on the block"!

      --
      Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
  5. Which of course has nothing to do with... by Karmashock · · Score: 4, Interesting

    the corn subsidies and the silly food pyramid.

    We eat too much, we exercise too little, and we eat the wrong things.

    More fruits, veg, and yes meat... and less starchy food.

    As to getting people to move their fat asses every so often... good luck with that.

    My ultimate solution to all this is massive genetic engineering.

    First there's no reason we couldn't make our staple crops more nutritious. If we can put beta carotene in the rice of third world farmers just imagine what we could do with our OWN food. You could turn your staple crop of choice into a fucking multivitamin.... shift the resources in it to fats and proteins. And that is just the ONE crop.

    A more reeasonable way to do it would be to have about 20 different breeds of wheat etc and have each one have its own special characteristics. THEN you just blend them together in the desired ratios at the flour mill. The health nuts will blend their own and most people will be happy with a standard blend.

    We can also do stuff like change gultin to something else that people aren't sometimes allergic to.

    Then of course there is the human body. The body does not NEED exercise to build muscle. It is TRIGGERED to build muscle by exercise. Those triggers can be adjusted. Ideally you want them to be related to food intake. If in some future we go into famine, the body must not keep assuming it has access to our 21st century food supply. It has to adapt. And of course, if you're getting lots of food, the body shouldn't stock pile excessive amounts of fat but rather build up some healthy muscle.

    On top of that, we should awaken the portions of our genes that permit regeneration. Currently we have only a few parts of our bodies that regenerate. The intestines for example still regenerate. But there is no reason it couldn't grow new internal organs, grow new limbs, grow new eyes, new ears, regenerate nerves, etc.All of that is latent in our biology.

    And while we're doing that... how about raise the standard human IQ to something less obnoxiously pitiful. Because boy oh boy are there are a lot of morons.

    --
    I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    1. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Another simple solution is to stop treating people who want to kill themselves. Want bypass surgery? Sorry, no, you are too fat.

    2. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Absolute nonsense.

    3. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But there is no reason it couldn't grow new internal organs, grow new limbs, grow new eyes, new ears, regenerate nerves, etc

      The genetic errors that are thought to lead to cancer (base mismatches, chromosomal missegregations, etc) most often occur during cell division. The more cells divide the more likely an error occurs. However, if you think about it the fertilized egg only needs to divide ~60 times to generate all the cells you'll ever need. So something is up.

      Approximately 7 x 10^15 mature cells are produced in a human lifetime and these could be produced in 53 cell generations (253 = 9 x 10^15). In 60 cell generations a total of 10^18 cells would be produced, enough for over 1000 years of human life.

      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25459141

    4. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you new to Karmashock's special brand of stupid?

    5. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      He might be, but no one is new to the AC trolls shitting all over other people's posts from the shadows.

      Tell me little one, what is your post history? Oh that's right, you don't have one.

      So to judge me based on a criteria you go out of your way to not have is at best hypocritical and at worst discietful.

      As I assume you're proobably the recurring AC troll that follows me around everywhere, you're just a liar. You say stupid shit all the time and who is going to judge you for it?

      I won't because unlike you, I don't have any interest in sniffing your panties.

      And no one else will because they can't keep you fucks straight.

      People like you provide NOTHING of value to the community. You just go around spreading negativity, take no responsibility for anything, and trolololol.

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    6. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      who the fuck still eats bread ?

    7. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by metlin · · Score: 1

      But the food industry has a vested interest in feeding you crap:

      The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

      If everyone ate fruits, veggies, and lean meat, then how can they sell you overpriced sugary crap?

    8. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Jack+Griffin · · Score: 1

      And while we're doing that... how about raise the standard human IQ to something less obnoxiously pitiful. Because boy oh boy are there are a lot of morons.

      We are

    9. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      May be we should skip the whole getting people smarter thing and go straight to a Brave New World. More attractive people and people too dumb to know they are being screwed is a key to global happiness.

    10. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      yep... again, it is going to happen.

      Stop for a moment and rise above the flow of time. See out 10,000... 100,000 years. You honestly think someone isn't going to do this?

      Come now.

      And who does it first will largely depend on whether relatively law abiding democratic societies pull the trigger and do it first.

      Look at the Soviets or the Nazis or the Imperial japanese. They weren't even that long ago and each had a certain technical proficiency and gave not so many fucks about what YOU happened to think about it.

      The Nazis were doing eugenics. The Imperial japanese were using prisoners of war for germ warfare experiments... and the list of nonsense the soviets got up could and does have many books written about it.

      If we do it, and we do it ethically... then we can usher this technology into the human sphere in a positive and non-destructive way.

      But if you try to stop it then all you're doing is leaving it for those that won't care to do it instead.

      But it will happen.

      Once you understand that it will happen... once you truly process that reality... your perspective on the issue can't help but change.

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    11. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      Its not so simple as the "evil corporations"...

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    12. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Foobar+of+Borg · · Score: 1

      He might be, but no one is new to the AC trolls shitting all over other people's posts from the shadows.

      Tell me little one, what is your post history? Oh that's right, you don't have one.

      So to judge me based on a criteria you go out of your way to not have is at best hypocritical and at worst discietful.

      As I assume you're proobably the recurring AC troll that follows me around everywhere, you're just a liar. You say stupid shit all the time and who is going to judge you for it?

      I won't because unlike you, I don't have any interest in sniffing your panties.

      And no one else will because they can't keep you fucks straight.

      People like you provide NOTHING of value to the community. You just go around spreading negativity, take no responsibility for anything, and trolololol.

      There are plenty of ACs posting plenty of crazy things. You do not have some sort of AC stalker. Please. For the good of us all. Take your meds!

    13. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      I do actually. I call him "bingo"... and he does appear in most places I post eventually.

      Have you never been trolled? Anyway, Bingo follows me around and makes really stupid hostile comments. And I'll call him bingo and he doesn't even react to that anymore. If it were a different guy he'd say 'why are you calling me bingo" or something. He did that the first couple times and he just takes it in stride now. :)

      Anyway, trolls exist. Saying otherwise is silly.

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    14. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      everyone. Especially your mother.

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    15. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are plenty of ACs posting plenty of crazy things. You do not have some sort of AC stalker. Please. For the good of us all. Take your meds!

      Don't listen to him Karma! Fooborg's in league with them! They're all out to get you and coming for all dah white women! Where dey at!?!

    16. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yep... again, it is going to happen.

      Stop for a moment and rise above the flow of time. See out 10,000... 100,000 years. You honestly think someone isn't going to do this?

      Come now.

      And who does it first will largely depend on whether relatively law abiding democratic societies pull the trigger and do it first.

      Look at the Soviets or the Nazis or the Imperial japanese. They weren't even that long ago and each had a certain technical proficiency and gave not so many fucks about what YOU happened to think about it.

      The Nazis were doing eugenics. The Imperial japanese were using prisoners of war for germ warfare experiments... and the list of nonsense the soviets got up could and does have many books written about it.

      If we do it, and we do it ethically... then we can usher this technology into the human sphere in a positive and non-destructive way.

      But if you try to stop it then all you're doing is leaving it for those that won't care to do it instead.

      But it will happen.

      Once you understand that it will happen... once you truly process that reality... your perspective on the issue can't help but change.

      If people could be trusted to do it in an ethical fashion in the first place, we wouldn't need it. This is bullshit "yay us, F them!" at its peak. I don't know if Karmashock has been idolizing Nazi's since the first colored folk took the last seat on a bus or what, but this is probably the craziest post I've seen from him. I've seen a lot of rose colored remembrances of the 1950's Americana people like he seem to long for, but I think this is the first time they looked to Nazi eugenics as a solution. On the plus side, its likely to be less than 30 years before he and his party die off and hopefully take their flawed reasoning with them.

    17. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      There are plenty of ACs posting plenty of crazy things. You do not have some sort of AC stalker.

      Anyone who has been on Slashdot posting their actual opinion for any length of time has had AC stalkers. At minimum, they've been stalked by APK.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    18. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by VanessaE · · Score: 2

      On top of that, we should awaken the portions of our genes that permit regeneration. Currently we have only a few parts of our bodies that regenerate. The intestines for example still regenerate. But there is no reason it couldn't grow new internal organs, grow new limbs, grow new eyes, new ears, regenerate nerves, etc.All of that is latent in our biology.

      But...didn't researchers at Marvel already establish that this may sometimes lead to people dying in sudden, very hot explosions? :-P

    19. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by aquabat · · Score: 1

      Personally, I am of the opinion that there is really only one AC on slashdot. I know lots of people here, and they're all pretty nice and smart. Ergo, there can only be one exception, namely the one that proves the rule.

      --
      A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
    20. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We eat too much, we exercise too little, and we eat the wrong things.

      Almost no one went to the gym in the 1960's. And have you seen a cookbook from the 50's-60's? Everything was made with canned foods. The amount of gelatin and mayonnaise was ridiculous. The defining dish of the period was chicken a la king, hardly an example of low-calorie eating. There's nothing new about the American diet, or American exercise habits. It's not clear what's going on, other than the answer isn't obvious.

    21. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by guacamole · · Score: 1

      And another thing, driving a car here is cheaper than pretty much anywhere in the western world. We have cheap gas. We have cheap cars. Even European cars are much cheaper here than in Europe itself. In Brazil, you may pay something like twice the American sticker price to buy a typical Japanese car. Considering this relatively low cost of driving, no wonder most people live in suburbs and do not bother with the public transport. Some of the fattest people come out of Texas, and strangely, Texas is the place where I have seen the least amount of designated bicycle lanes or pedestrian walkways. Bicyclists are being mowed down by SUV going 50mph, because there is no lane for bicycles, drivers are not accustomed to check for bicycles, and everybody is on the phone.

    22. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it would be easier to genetically engineer the humans not to be land whales.

    23. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Stuarticus · · Score: 1

      What looks ethical to you now will look very different to those looking back in the future. I'd like to present history as evidence.

      --
      If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
    24. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What you talkin bout Willis? Govmint is the *answer*!

    25. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by lexman098 · · Score: 1
    26. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >But...didn't researchers at Marvel already establish that this may sometimes lead to people dying in sudden, very hot explosions? :-P

      No, that was the Zik Zak Corporation and their Blipverts.

    27. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      *giggles*

      Indeed. And what controls such changes in ethics?

      Necessity, inevitability, normalization, familiarization, and the abandoning of antiquated beliefs that are no longer relevant in a new context.

      So here you think YOUR beliefs are going to survive which are far more the status quo than mine. And your position is based mostly on the false belief that you can stop it, that it isn't normal, that you're not familiar with it in your daily life, that that you are still holding to your moral and ethical codes even as it becomes obvious that they're becoming obsolete.

      I'm afraid not. Your view will give way to mine just as surely as people lost the belief that taking pictures of people stole their souls.

      You have a problem with gene engineering? That view will become quaint. And largely ignored when it can be and reviled when it imposes or slows down the development of the technology.

      You can't stop it.

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    28. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Stuarticus · · Score: 1

      Halfwit. I was saying all our morals will likely look ridiculous in days to come. I don't agree with genetic engineering at the moment. It's hubris to believe we can better than a billion years of evolution in the thirty or so years we have actually been able to study it.

      --
      If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
    29. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by avandesande · · Score: 1

      Fake muscle (alone) would be a disaster. It takes a long time for your joints, connective tissue and even bones to strengthen through exercise. Boosting muscles would result in a lot of injuries.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    30. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      What? If we could be trusted to do it ethically we wouldn't need it?

      How does that make any sense?

      We wouldn't need regeneration, longer life, higher intelligence, greater health... if we were ehtical?

      What the actual fuck are you talking about?

      See, this is why I have so little patience for hippy dippy Luddites. You're not rational.

      Would we not need fire if we were ethical?
      Would we not need the wheel if we were ethical?
      Would we not need antibiotics if we were ethical?

      I really regret the retirement of the old Stocks. The sort of stupidity coming out of your mouth should be answered by locking in the middle of the public square and letting children draw dicks on your forehead. This is just absurdly stupid.

      I guess it relates to intelligence but I've seen some very intelligent people that had some massive blind spots when it came to ideology. So that is probably unavoidable without even more extensive engineering.

      Something the evolutionary psychologists say is that there is a reason we are rational about reality but not rational about government and society.

      It has to do with gene propagation. If you're not rational about reality you'll die when you try to eat rocks or something. If you're rational about society then you might question the king or the dogma of your time and that could lead to gene death.

      So we've been bred to be rational on reality and irrational on society. Your society... like most... has some irrational aspects to it.

      I'm personally a cynic... I don't really have a society. Pros and cons to that. But one of the pros is that I don't slavishly buy into dogma that isn't of my own making.

      As to your suggestion that I could be a fascist... So your next move is to trigger Godwin's law?

      Good work, fuckwit. *laughs*

      God... I don't know whether to be impressed with how well I peg people off the bat or if I should be depressed that you people are so fucking predictable.

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    31. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      Fair point, you'd have to trigger a lot of things.

      One thing I'd like to include in that would be bone mineralization.

      This is a big thing in martial arts. They spend a lot of time hitting things. All the time. And it has an effect on their bones. Their bones get harder. A lot harder. And that means when they actually start hitting things in fights, it hurts people more because they're getting hit with harder bones. Also the person hitting them gets hurt less by the impacts because their bones are a great deal stronger.

      We have many examples of people that have issues with bone mineralization. Women mostly... mostly older women. Old men get issues with it too. Anyway, while I take your point, I'd just say that of course you'd include those tweaks as well.

      Basically trigger all the stress related genes so the body defaults to a healthy norm. And going super human with it is not unreasonable either.

      --
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    32. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      No one said we could engineer complex life from scratch in the next ten years. To say we are outdoing billions of years of evolution, we'd have to make an original work. No one is doing that. So your comparison is invalid.

      That's the comparison you just made. Which is stupid and a strawman.

      So you can go fuck yourself just from that comment. Sideways with a rake is preferred. ;)

      But moving on, the actual thing I'm talking about is EDITING an existing work. Correcting spelling errors... grammatical errors... possibly changing the ending of a chapter or two.

      Most of this will be flipping switches. Certain genes are set to default to 0 and we want them to default to 1 some genes are set to 1 and we want them default to 0. Nearly all of it is that.

      Now shit for brains... come at me with another pathetic strawman. I'm positively hard with anticipation... I'm sitting here with a raging fever... the walls are weaving in and out... melting around me... and I'm still smarter than you. In a nobler age, people like you would serve as my foot rest.

      Fuck off.

      --
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    33. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Stuarticus · · Score: 1

      Editors are usually higher up the food chain than writers. It takes more experience, not less. I love how easily you lapse into vulgarity.

      --
      If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
    34. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      Which is why spell checkers are considered the masters of the english language.

      You're conflating an engineering question with an artistic and aesthetic one.

      First off, there are a lot of genes that are known to just fuck up the human body and have no value otherwise.

      You know there is such a thing as genetic disorders right? This is how we're going to get genetic engineering through people like you. We're going to help the sick. You're easily manipulated by emotion and pathos. So we're going to show you some sick children. Are you going to let little timmy die or are you going to let a gene theopist tweak his genes to save his life?

      See? Even when I'm honest about it you know you're fucked. You can't stop this.

      That sort of thing will not be stopped. Then you're going to get billionaires and vane people asking for longer life and bigger tits. Are you going to be able to stop that? Even if you try in one country you'll just drive the market over seas. Will a billionaire set up a genetics lab outside your territory to extend his own life? Yep.

      Will some bimbo fly around the world to get her genes tweaked so her skin is wrinkle free and her tits stand up? Yep.

      And once the trailblazers clear the way, the rest of society will ask "why not me?"... and it just goes from there.

      You cannot stop it.

      All you can do is waste the time of those that would make it happen faster. But you CANNOT stop it.

      So complain and equivocate all you like... its happening. The only decision is if you want it to happen slowly over time where you have some control over how it is introduced... Or if you'd prefer for it to happen in unpredictable bursts where you have no control what so ever.

      Choose. Those are your two options. I know you want a third one. You don't have one. Sorry. This is reality.

      --
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    35. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its not so simple as the "evil corporations"...

      Oh, but that's a hell of a lot of it. Just take a quick skim of this and get back to the adults at the table.

      When you're down to putting people into an MRI machine to gauge the optimal sweetness and attractiveness of a food and then having Cargill make salt crystals in a certain shape for optimal performance, you're entering RJ Reynolds territory.

      From the book:

      At Cargill, scientists are altering the physical shape of salt, pulverizing it into a fine powder to hit the taste buds faster and harder, improving what the company calls its ‘flavor burst.'

      Scientists at Nestle are currently fiddling with the distribution and shape of fat globules to affect their absorption rate and, as it’s known in the industry, ‘their mouthfeel.'

      To make a new soda that is guaranteed to create a craving, it requires scientists employ the high math of regression analysis and intricate charts to plot what industry insiders call the “bliss point” – namely, the precise amount of sugar (or fat) that will send consumers over the moon.

    36. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      First, I'm not faulting the food companies from trying to make food tasty. That's fucking dumb.

      Second, this only really addresses highly processed foods and there are a lot of fat people that don't eat that stuff.

      Third, it doesn't take high math to figure out that humans like sugars and fats. Chiefs have been doing that for time out of mind. Look at a lot of traditional cooking and the stuff you feed to the rich and powerful was all about dense fruit sauces and heavy creams and fatty gravies and stuff.

      I'm not interested in giving an outlet for hatred of corporations in this issue since it is a distraction.

      The corps are dangerous not in that they are evil but rather that they are myopic. That said, they're extremely useful and our society... or any conceivable society of relative prosperity would be impossible without them. I believe that solving problems is easier if you're really rich. And I think solving problems if you're really poor is really hard.

      So I'm going to protect our wealth as a general hedge against unforeseen nonsense because if we're rich we can deal with most problems a great deal more easily.

      The anti corporate, anti capitalist thing has grown tiresome. A lot of that crap started as a psyops attack on the US from the USSR. Literally. You can cite the soviet archives which are public record at this point.

      Its tiresome. The USSR is gone. Capitalism won. Let it go.

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    37. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      Ahh, being stalked by APK, that was a fun week.

      I got him in the end, he ended up changing his crap post. He tried to claim that a host file prevented DNS amplification attacks. This is clearly not true if you know what a DNS amplification attack is, and how it works.

      Yeah, anonymous stalkers are what give Slashdot that charm.
       

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    38. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      How much starch was in the diet and what were the portions like and how much exercise did the people get?

      Conflating "gym" with exercise implies that that is the only way you can get exercise. That's clearly silly.

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    39. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      You might as well give that line of argument up. People in big cities think it is practical to fuck with the automotive industry or gas supply because they have a lot of mass transit.

      People that live outside the cities need cars, trucks, etc. Need them. Their communities don't work without them.

      And here you might reply "so what, fuck them"... the problem with that is that you need them. They're providing you food, raw materials... and really too many things to go into right now.

      So no. We're not doing away with the automobile. Ever. No. *gets out newspaper and rolls it up* Don't make me smack you on the nose ;)

      This anti automobile argument is unworkable. Just drop it.

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    40. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      We have already genetically engineered cows to not produce fat but instead just produce muscle.

      It isn't an ideal mod for most humans because they look like roid freaks. But it shows how the modification is already within our technological grasp.

      I believe what they did was turned off a single gene that produces the fat. The gene was first discovered in dogs I think. Some of them had randomly mutated this gene being off and thus looked like insane body builder dogs. Their genome was studied and we found what had happened. Then we applied it to cows to see if the cattle industry wanted cows that only produced meat. No fat. ONLY lean meat and lots of it.

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    41. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As to your suggestion that I could be a fascist... So your next move is to trigger Godwin's law?

      Didn't you invoke Godwin by admiring the Nazi eugenics programs a couple posts up?

      The Nazis were doing eugenics. The Imperial japanese were using prisoners of war for germ warfare experiments...

      If we do it, and we do it ethically...

      Yes, I'm sure when "we" use POW's for OUR germ warfare experiments it will be with the highest of ethics.

      F-ing psycho. Posted Anon, because I don't need a crazy stalker with too much time on his hands.

    42. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      I didn't admire the nazis anymore than I admired the imperial japanese conducting germ warfare experiments on PoWs, twit. Just so you are clear... that is not at all. They were both scum bags mostly for abusing non consenting civilians and abusing PoW status. I think the Japanese were also doing live vivisections of US PoWs... really nasty shit.

      What I did was point out that the tech won't be stopped by your petty ideology or ethics or morality EVEN IF everyone in our civilization thinks it is immoral or bad. It won't be stopped. Eventually it is going to be developed. And the society that masters it first is going to have an advantage over the rest.

      The technology will be developed.

      Do you know what the first person to discover fire said? "Ouch". A thing's power is proportional to its danger. Safe technologies are almost always very limited in application and relevance. Fire... think of what we do with it. We cook our food, we clear fields, we keep ourselves warm, we generate electricity, we drive cars with controlled explosions going off in the clockwork of their engines, we fly around the world in aluminum birds blazing through the sky on jet fuel, do all kinds of smelting/metalworking/machining... The things we do with fire. Its dangerous Don't respect it and it will burn you alive and take as much of your surroundings with you as is chemically possible.

      But the danger of fire is worth the benefit especially if you know how to handle it.

      Will we get burned by genetic engineering? Yes. Will it get out of control on occasion? Yep. It has many problems. And we'll probably suffer all of them to at least a limited extent at one point or another. And those scares will force us to respect the technology in the same way that all dangerous technologies force its users to respect it. Or those technologies KILL YOU.

      So yeah, Genetic engineering is dangerous. What's new? Fire is dangerous. Nuclear power is dangerous. Name a technology worth a damn that isn't dangerous? Think of how many technologies you can make a weapon out of if you want to. Almost all of them.

      What makes genetic engineering so amazing is that it is applicable to every living thing on this planet as well as any living thing we might create.

      You don't like genetic engineering? You might as well hate electricity. They just started a factory which produces spider silk. They have vats of yeast that produce spider silk proteins. The vats are harvested and filtered... and they can extract JUST the spider silk from the vats. My understanding is that it is sort of a gelatinous blob when removed from the tanks... at that point in time still... and you have to do is extrude it and mix it with alcohol and that causes it to turn into what we think of as spider silk. So they do that under controlled conditions and they can produce a continuous strand of spider silk which they cut every so often and spin onto spindles. It is then used for textiles of some description.

      Just one example of many.

      You CANNOT stop it. You can accept it or you can hold you hand up to the east and tell the Sun to stop. It's going to be about as likely to heed your protest as this technological revolution.

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    43. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      Its not so simple as the "evil corporations"...

      Nothing simple about it, but it is significant and relevant. The amount of marketing that goes into getting people to buy "food" items, both prepared and in markets, is rivaled only by the amount of research that goes into making the food both attractive, and yet simultaneously NOT satiating. Health-wise, it's pretty much limited to the food not being legally toxic; otherwise the research that goes into processed food is pretty much the same as any other industrial chemical field, and that which goes into the raw food is more interested in making the food robust enough to survive picking, handling, and shipping than health.
      And the companies which sell the stuff are dedicated to moving more and more, like any other for-profit corporation selling a product.
      If all of this stuff did not move more product, the companies would not do it. They measure the cost/benefit of all this activity very accurately.
      But that's the way we feed the nation now; we're not going to go back to the vast majority of Americans being small farmers. And we don't have any Plan C. All the foofraw over natural food, and healthy food, and unprocessed food, and blah blah is just a subset of the above processes, not a real commitment to putting customer's health over profit. We've been through this before, with things like adding vitamins to breakfast cereal. Does anybody believe that serves any real purpose in increasing people's health? Or is it just a good excuse people can tell themselves so they can buy the same sugar flavored cardboard their kids are trained to scream for by bright and cheery cartoon characters?
      See also "naturally gluten free!" the marketing cry of just about every food product that can manage it today. Because the corporations have become convinced that they need to save America from the dread fate of consuming gluten?

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    44. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      And while we're doing that... how about raise the standard human IQ to something less obnoxiously pitiful. Because boy oh boy are there are a lot of morons.

      We are

      Look at it this way. At any given time, there are a limited number of humans who are doing something that will help the species. The rest of us, we're just the breeding stock and life support for those guys.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    45. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by guacamole · · Score: 1

      I am not anti-automobile. The issue is that the people in the suburban America are glued to their cars too much. It's ok to have cheap cars and gas. But in my opinion, it's not ok to have dense cities with no accommodation for bicyclists or even pedestrians.

      Want to walk to the nearest bus stop or a coffee shop? Fine, how about walking a mile on somebody's grassy front yard, empty field, or the road shoulder, as if you were living in some kind of a third world country, even though you're well inside a densely built up areas within the city limits of a major city with +1million people? I also find it shocking, that where I live, we have streets with three lanes for cars, each lane must be widest in USA, 45mph speed limit, and no bicycle lanes. Welcome to the middle America, the home of fat people. And this is where I know 80% of people work about 1-3 miles away from the place where they live, a perfect commuter bicycling distance.

      The city planning in a lot of areas of the South is just terrible. The city planners made sure that cars can get from any place to any other place with great convenience. But how about having a pedestrian walkway on every street, specially within the city limits of all major cities, or having bicycle lanes?

    46. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which is why spell checkers are considered the masters of the english language.

      You're conflating an engineering question with an artistic and aesthetic one.

      First off, there are a lot of genes that are known to just fuck up the human body and have no value otherwise.

      You know there is such a thing as genetic disorders right? This is how we're going to get genetic engineering through people like you. We're going to help the sick. You're easily manipulated by emotion and pathos. So we're going to show you some sick children. Are you going to let little timmy die or are you going to let a gene theopist tweak his genes to save his life?

      See? Even when I'm honest about it you know you're fucked. You can't stop this.

      That sort of thing will not be stopped. Then you're going to get billionaires and vane people asking for longer life and bigger tits. Are you going to be able to stop that? Even if you try in one country you'll just drive the market over seas. Will a billionaire set up a genetics lab outside your territory to extend his own life? Yep.

      Will some bimbo fly around the world to get her genes tweaked so her skin is wrinkle free and her tits stand up? Yep.

      And once the trailblazers clear the way, the rest of society will ask "why not me?"... and it just goes from there.

      You cannot stop it.

      All you can do is waste the time of those that would make it happen faster. But you CANNOT stop it.

      So complain and equivocate all you like... its happening. The only decision is if you want it to happen slowly over time where you have some control over how it is introduced... Or if you'd prefer for it to happen in unpredictable bursts where you have no control what so ever.

      Choose. Those are your two options. I know you want a third one. You don't have one. Sorry. This is reality.

      Wrong! There is a third option but you would never accept it because it is so far outside your world view. And before you go there, I am not your "stalker" AC, I am the Shadow Person from underneath another kid's bed.. The point where you are wrong about there being no third option is that there are always those of us who are happy with who and what we are. No technology will persuade use to "go with the flow" unless a need should arise in terms of life threatening illnesses. As for needing bigger tits or whatever, that sounds like more of a male perspective than a female one.

    47. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by stoned_ritual · · Score: 1

      The problem with this is the minute we start selling food as a medicine, there will be even MORE fatties. Because "I can eat as much of this as I want, because it's GOOD for me!" The key to not being a big mclargehhuge is to eat less calories, OR burn MORE than you're taking in (that requires not sitting on your couch playing COD 18 hours a day)

    48. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If capitalism "won" (i didn't even know there was even a contest!) it's interesting that our economy has been on a downward spiral since about 2 decades after ww2, which is also interesting in that ww2 spurred chemical manufacturers into marketing chemicals as food additives, which also correlates to the rise in obesity. Sure, all these things are unrelated and the fact that we used the same chemicals for bombs in our breakfast cereals has nothing to do with the sharp decline in america's "super power" status. You sound like you'll blindly support anything our country does just because. NSA spying? I've got nothing to hide! Militarization of police? Not a problem, don't break the law and you won't get shot! Unfortunately you're the opposite of a good citizen, as it is our duty call bullshit when we offer impunity to people just because of the amount of zeroes in their bank acount. If you can look at America as it is today and say "looks good to me" I would suggest getting evaluated at a crisis center, and then kindly hang yourself in the shower.

    49. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      By what measure are you saying that?

      GDP adjusted for inflation contradicts your position.

      Look at this graph:
      http://www.multpl.com/us-gdp-i...

      *looks sadly at poster*

      I'm afraid you've been brain washed.

      *tears up a little bit*

      I want you to know I feel for you and it isn't your fault. Some people can't protect themselves from this sort of gaslighting.

      You need a very strong mental constitution to be able to digest, filter, and process that shit we're fed on a regular basis into useful information.

      Today, the average Russian earns about 25 percent what the average American earns. Their per person adjusted earning power is lower than Slovakia.

      SLOVAKIA out performs modern Russia.

      And we can go through all the other communist failed states which is redundant because communism does nothing but fail. You'll find nothing but a pitiful record of disappointment.

      I can't have a discussion that is logical with someone if they believe in a fantasy world.

      You are entitled to your own opinions. You are not entitled to your own facts. The only remnants of communism left are some cultural marxists hiding like rats between the walls in our liberal arts departments. And their days are numbered as well because rather then being subtle they're just creating one social media and political disaster after another.

      In another 50 years or so they'll be largely purged from places that cause us any trouble... and what remains will be sort of a cute harmless throwback that no one takes seriously.

      --
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    50. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      First, I know you're not the stalker. You're actually attempting to be rational. Bingo doesn't do that.

      Second, your third option is to say you're the Amish.

      Did the Amish stop the industrial revolution?

      No they did not.

      Your refusal to participate will merely set you apart and make you an anachronism. Your engineered peers will be healthier, better looking, smarter, longer lived, etc.

      Keep in mind, I actually am glad there are people like you. You are useful to me. You'll be a pristine gene bank. In the event that there are problems and we need samples of baseline humans, we can compare what went wrong with our mod with you.

      So I'm glad you're there. You'll also be a useful scientific counter point. We will point at various human statistics in the future and compare them against past humans. And its hard to do that because how do you know that some of it isn't education or something. But then you'll be there. Unmodified and fully able to show us emperically what the stats would be if we didn't get the mods.

      That's useful... for science.

      At best that is your role. But your belief that you can outright stop it because perhaps a few hundred million people don't like it? No. You can't stop it.

      Yes, you can become the Amish, a heritage gene bank, and a statistical benchmark. Look forward to that.

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    51. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      There aren't a lot of people getting fat on salad.

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    52. Re:Which of course has nothing to do with... by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      The obesity issue is not caused by a lack of bike paths...

      Try harder.

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  6. Height increase justifies nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Americans, you're just disgustingly fat, men and women: https://upload.wikimedia.org/w...

    Stop eating completely, for at least a couple of weeks.

    1. Re:Height increase justifies nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you're quoting a chart based on BMI.. BMI is wrong, stop using it. Its not even good for population evulation anymore because of the increased height of the subjects.

      Quote: The medical establishment[31] and statistical community[32] have both highlighted the limitations of BMI. Mathematician Keith Devlin and the restaurant industry association Center for Consumer Freedom argue that the error in the BMI is significant and so pervasive that it is not generally useful in evaluation of health.[33][34] University of Chicago political science professor Eric Oliver says BMI is a convenient but inaccurate measure of weight, forced onto the populace, and should be revised.[35]

      Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index

      Example, I weigh 104kg's (229 pounds) I am 198.5cm tall that makes my BMI 26.5 which is = Overweight, but I have a a body fat level of 11% which is an athletic fat level - I eat healthy and goto the gym 3 times a week, I recently completed a marathon finishing in the top 20... yet I'm overweight.. um no.

    2. Re:Height increase justifies nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're an edge case because you're an athlete. The vast majority of people are not and for them the BMI scale is a perfectly valid tool to use.

    3. Re:Height increase justifies nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mathematician Keith Devlin and the restaurant industry association Center for Consumer Freedom argue that the error in the BMI is significant and so pervasive that it is not generally useful in evaluation of health.[33][34] University of Chicago political science professor Eric Oliver says BMI is a convenient but inaccurate measure of weight, forced onto the populace, and should be revised.[35]

      Ok fine, let's sum up: a mathematician (!), a political science professor (!!) and somebody from a restaurant industry association (!!!) don't like an indicator that is used worldwide by physicians to measure obesity, and that is used to rank countries' obesity by the World Health Organization and the OECD in their annual papers. Thanks, very useful. To guess what the BMIs of those 3 guys might be.

    4. Re:Height increase justifies nothing by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      I thought BMI was actually a good measure for large populations, which is was it was designed for.
      Because people you* average out against the rest of the population

      It's a poor measure for individuals. Always has been and was never designed to apply to.

      * or what you claim to be you.

    5. Re:Height increase justifies nothing by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      The BMI is only valid even for a subset of Northern Europeans. For people that are taller it's invalid. It's also invalid for other ethnic groups.

      Peformance is a far more useful metric. It also separates out the anorexics from those that are genuinely fit.

      Those BMI numbers also originally arose from a time of global economic catastrophe. Their value should be doubted simply for that.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    6. Re:Height increase justifies nothing by Nethemas+the+Great · · Score: 1

      Let's for a second turn off the censor and cut strait to what the BMI is all about. It's about telling fat people that they're fat. A healthy person, particularly athletic persons knows that BMI is not applicable to them and generally ignore it. Could we come up with a metric that accommodates healthy people with above average muscle mass? Sure. But there's no point, and it would be over complicated, more difficult to apply by lay persons, and detract from the original objective.

      The funny bit that doesn't make much sense is that fat people generally already know that they're fat. Why do we need a "scientific" method to call them out on it? I assume the point is to get them to do something about it. Trouble is, we've been groomed to consume large quantities of what I can only consider to be "feed" and shun actual food, nutritionally balanced, healthful food. We've been groomed to prefer extra ordinarily sweet, fatty, pre-digested calories. Of course since it's pre-digested, we have to eat more of the stuff since we feel hungry two minutes later if we don't. It's been tailored to hit all the right buttons in our brain's pleasure/reward centers so we become addicted to it. Even when people want to eat "healthy" the manufactured food companies deceive everyone with misinformation. They convince everyone that their candy bars are healthy by calling them "energy" bars. Their bowls of flake shaped sugar must be good for you since they use "whole" grains, never mind the fact that a serving contains less than 1 gram of fiber, and 25 grams of sugar. It's a treadmill, and fat people are meant to stay on it. The calorie companies prefer it that way. Don't like it? Tough, you're in the minority, you're not a shareholder and you don't get a vote.

      Now can we please get back to geek subjects and allow us to stuff our face with Cheetos in peace.

      --
      Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.
    7. Re:Height increase justifies nothing by NeoMorphy · · Score: 1

      It's inaccurate for most people. If you're tall then it doesn't scale correctly. I'm 6'2", should I weigh 145 pounds? The BMI calculation would say that was normal weight! I'm 225 with a 36" waist, which almost makes me obese. I exercise and try to eat right, most of the time. If I trimmed down to 200 pounds I would still be considered overweight!

      Using a bad formula that doesn't take into account body fat% is ridiculous.

      .

    8. Re:Height increase justifies nothing by hercludes · · Score: 1

      Ok fine, let's sum up: a mathematician (!), a political science professor (!!) and somebody from a restaurant industry association (!!!) don't like an indicator that is used worldwide by physicians to measure obesity, and that is used to rank countries' obesity by the World Health Organization and the OECD in their annual papers. Thanks, very useful. To guess what the BMIs of those 3 guys might be.

      It's pretty ironic that you point out that a mathematician(!) is against BMI when it was a mathematician(!) that created BMI.

    9. Re:Height increase justifies nothing by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 1

      You must be using a different BMI calculator. At 6' 1", it said my 180 pounds was normal. It does break down for people who actually exercise, as it doesn't tell the difference between 200 pounds of muscle and 200 pounds of flab.

      --
      Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
    10. Re:Height increase justifies nothing by Merk42 · · Score: 1

      you're quoting a chart based on BMI.. BMI is wrong, stop using it.

      At least ask for permission first, otherwise you might get sued.

  7. Mostly because our food is shit. by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Honestly 90% of what we consumer is not food but just piles of sugar coated shit.

    Stop eating at any restaurants, Stop eating anything that comes in a box or Bag. Hell even our bread is so sweet that most europeans call it cake.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    1. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by firehawk2k · · Score: 1

      You only wish it was sugar. Americans eat HFCS.

    2. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      In america rice comes in bags. (unless you buy minute rice, that comes in boxes).
      There are plenty of restaurants that don't feed you HFC and other corn products.
      The problem is going to BurgerStore every day and eating the super deal with an extra pizza with 2 gallons of coke.
      Also the whole "being fat is genetic" and "being fat is OK" trend isn't helping much.
      Stop eating food for 4 and sugar for a week and you will be fine, even if you eat out every single day.

    3. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's 'Murrica where fatties are proud to be fat and it's OK to be a lard ass. Too bad reddit ditched the hamplanet subs to avoid shaming enormous 'Murricans into eating like normal folks.

    4. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by BlackSabbath · · Score: 2

      Correction: I believe highly processed food is more shit-coated sugar than sugar-coated shit.

    5. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would anyone take your advice?

      Presumably, they already know they are fat, and if that was a problem for them they would already be doing something about it.

      I am more worried about the worldwide drop in testosterone in men. Correct hormone balance is necessary for long-term health, and short of supplementation there is only so much you can do to keep your testosterone levels up.

    6. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by evilrip · · Score: 1

      You guys actually have bread over there? I saw many preservative laden facsimiles that looked like the real thing, however I realized when not even mold would eat it, that it surely wasn't bread :)

      --
      "To err is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the Operating System"
    7. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck you, needledick! I'm 38 years old, 5'10", 132 pounds, and I eat anything I can get my hands on. Lots of high fat, high sugar, high calorie food. The problem isn't the food. It's the genetics of inbred sloths like yourself. The American population has breed itself into disgusting fat-bodies, with yourself being a prime example.

    8. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by kenj123 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I couldn't agree more. Its ridiculous how much salt and sugar is in everything. I have started buying cans of diced tomatos and black beans that don't have salt in them, and I put a can of that in everything I eat. I'm to the point now that potato chips, nacho etc taste like the spoonfuls of salt that they are. Also, anything that has sugar or fructose in them get tossed. I make my own bbq sauce from pineapple and tomato paste. I don't buy bread anymore, I make my own out of whole wheat and chick pea flour, although I have started to use whole wheat wraps to make sandwiches for the convenience. I'm also trying som near beers or fermented drinks like Kombucha 'tea', Belgian lambic or Russian Kvass (or maybe even just Odules) to get me more used to sour foods. I've been eating pickles lately and found if I eat just a slice first thing in the morning it kills my appetite for sweets.

    9. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by dugancent · · Score: 2

      It counts as a sugar. Stop eating anything that has added sweeter, whether it sugar, corn syrup, aspartame, splenda, etc. It doesn't matter.

      --
      SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
    10. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Skinny nerds making fun of fat nerds who make fun of skinny nerds. Some things never change.

    11. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      HFCS is worse than sugar, and PHVO is worse than saturated fat. And that's what you get in the USA if you pay attention to cost and convenience but not nutrition and values.

    12. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Honestly 90% of what we consumer is not food but just piles of sugar coated shit.

      Stop eating at any restaurants, Stop eating anything that comes in a box or Bag. Hell even our bread is so sweet that most europeans call it cake.

      Well, Soylent comes in a bag. I tried it for a bit and I have to say it is pretty good comparing to everything else. Probably gona switch to it part time once it is available.

    13. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by PRMan · · Score: 1

      Soy lowers testosterone levels. Soy intake is up. Asia traditionally had less testosterone than the west. This isn't really rocket science, is it?

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    14. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://fph.io/

      Here you go! Motivates me to get to the gym every day!

    15. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      HFCS comes in several different grades between 40 and 55 percent fructose. The remainder is mostly glucose and a small amount of other sugars, generally polysaccharides.

      Honey is basically equivalent to HFCS-49. It's "invert sugar", which is a polysaccharide, generally sucrose, broken down into its component monosaccharides. Unfiltered ("USDA Grade B") honey also has a small amount of pollen, dirt, and other random bee-related flotsam in it. (Probably including bee feces.)

      Cane sugar is a starchy vegetable that, when refined by boiling, produces a syrup (a.k.a. "molasses") made up of polysaccharides (mostly sucrose). Typically, this is allowed to crystallize for easy transport. The same process can done, with similar results, to other starchy vegetation, such as sugar beets or sorghum (a.k.a. "milo"). For use in industrial applications, the crystalline product is generally dissolved back into a liquid and boiled into a mix, generally breaking it down into invert sugar with a nearly pure 1:1 ratio of fructose and glucose.

      Most Americans eat beet sugar. Cane sugar is expensive, so only the expensive brands (C&H) are pure-cane sugar. Beet sugar looks and tastes exactly the same. Sorghum (milo) is generally used for dark molasses production. Corn is used for clear molasses production. But there's a lot more corn than milo grown here, so a good portion of that clear molasses gets distilled further into HFCS.

      Don't be a stereotypical knee-jerk reactionary dumb-ass. HFCS is just distilled corn molasses. It's no different from boiling down Karo to make it sweeter, which is a perfectly reasonable thing for a baker or confectioner to do. It's a mere alteration of the moisture content of the sweetening agent.

    16. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by rainmaestro · · Score: 5, Interesting

      A couple years ago I decided to give up refined sugar in general for a few months, particularly soda (like any good dev, I consumed more than my share of the stuff). After 3 months without, I drank a Dr. Pepper (my favorite) and it was disgusting. Tasted like a mouthful of sugar. Amazing how much you become desensitized to sugar, and the same holds for salt.

      The real surprise was one day when I discovered that carrots are actually sweet. They just don't seem that way when you consume a metric ton of refined sugar every week. That really made me start wondering just how badly my perception of foods had been corrupted over the years.

    17. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And interesting they practice yoga over there. Yoga increases testosterone levels. Don't ask me how, I don't know, but I've read studies where they measured it and it goes up. That's one reason more women do yoga than men. Females have lower testosterone levels so their bodies respond more to the greater percentage change of testosterone. The females feel the effects of yoga more than the males.

    18. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by David_Hart · · Score: 1

      A couple years ago I decided to give up refined sugar in general for a few months, particularly soda (like any good dev, I consumed more than my share of the stuff). After 3 months without, I drank a Dr. Pepper (my favorite) and it was disgusting. Tasted like a mouthful of sugar. Amazing how much you become desensitized to sugar, and the same holds for salt.

      The real surprise was one day when I discovered that carrots are actually sweet. They just don't seem that way when you consume a metric ton of refined sugar every week. That really made me start wondering just how badly my perception of foods had been corrupted over the years.

      Yes carrots are sweet, especially right from the garden. The carrots that most grocery stores have are pretty much crap. You want to know what else is sweet raw and right from the ground, potatoes. You wouldn't think so, but they are.

    19. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Both erythritol and stevia may actually have positive health effects. Sweet doesn't equal bad... just sugar

      Splenda may be bad, but not because it behaves like sugar normally does.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    20. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by istartedi · · Score: 1

      Stop eating anything that comes in a box or Bag.

      Very well then. I'll just grab a few of these loose potatoes here... that 24 oz. steak wrapped in paper looks good, and uh... let's wash it down with a couple of those 40s over there.

      --
      For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
    21. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Ryanrule · · Score: 1

      thats bullshit. plenty of fruits much sweeter than soda.

    22. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That was my experience exactly, though not with carrots but with strawberries.
      People kept telling me strawberries taste great but I always found them to be sour unless I added a ton of sugar.
      Turns out they're naturally sweet.

      The other benefit that I noticed is that I no longer crave food all the time.
      My advice to you if you're trying to lose weight is: drop sugar. Completely.
      It sucks for the first few weeks but after that it's totally worth it.
      It's like an addiction, really.

    23. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      how odd, I eat at restaurants that use simple ingredients of food. I'd say don't buy 70% of what is at the typical grocery store.

    24. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by rainmaestro · · Score: 1

      (1) What specifically is bullshit? That your taste buds become desensitized when consuming a liter of high-sugar soda every day for years? That carrots are sweet? That you don't taste the (comparably low) sugar in a carrot after consuming lots of high-sugar drinks?

      (2) Could you name some of these myriad fruits? I know that dried fruits are typically high in sugar (though also eaten in much smaller quantities), but that's about it. A quick search doesn't turn up a single fruit that I'd find in a typical grocery store outside of the few dried varieties that can even match the 26g of sugar per 8oz serving of Dr. Pepper (and I'm being generous in calling a serving 8oz instead of a 12oz can), let alone surpass it.

    25. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Alomex · · Score: 1

      what else is sweet raw and right from the ground, potatoes.

      DON'T. I repeat DO NOT eat raw potatoes. and I quote:

      Raw potatoes contain alkaloids. You can have diarrhea, cramps and vomiting. Whereas green potatoes with lots of solanine can cause hallucinations and heart rhythm problems. And if you eat a lot of raw green potatoes, it could kill you.

    26. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seriously - try it if you don't believe rain. Carrots are now my indulgence snack and celery my normal snack.

    27. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by antdude · · Score: 1

      Don't forget drinks!!

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    28. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      I too have gone salt free in my own cooking (health reasons) and I've also found that stuff I used to enjoy often tastes too salty.

      I have to spend timne shopping in woo-woo health food shops now because supermarkets still aren't good at stuff with less added salt. It's a flavour enhancer, so it can be trickier to make soups and stews, but the tricks can be learned. One is I found only one brand (Kallo) who make vegetable stock cube with no added salt (organic of course because there's no reason to want low salt if you're not into woo), which I find very useful.

      I've also always likes Smith's Salt 'n' Shake crisps (they come with the salt in a packet inside each bag, not pre applied) which are in fac salt free if you don't add the salt.

      You can get peanut butter with no added salt and sugar as well.

      I also found online that "Lo-Salt" makes for decent flux for aluminium casting, and that's the only thing I buy it for. So, there you go.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    29. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

      Interesting there's some evidence that even artificial sweeteners can screw with your insulin system a bit, though not as much as real sugar. Mostly because the brain thinks that sugar is incoming and produces insulin for the expected inrush of sugar which never occurs.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    30. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by aaaaaaargh! · · Score: 1

      There is nothing wrong with a steak and boiled potatoes. Accompanied with a fresh salad that's very healthy food. (Unless you add some pre-fabricated sauce or pre-fabricated salad dressing, which taste like crap anyway.)

    31. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by guacamole · · Score: 1

      Why stop at sugar? 90% of our food is either sugar coated shit, or salt coated shit. Salt is being frequently used as a substitute for flavor, and this is why our fast food is so salty, whether it's chicken, burritos, or french fries. The result of using too much salt is the increased consumption of shit we don't need, and then of course the health related issues, like blood pressure and so on.

    32. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Drethon · · Score: 1

      I eat US shit food. My wife cooks about four nights a week which provides leftovers, the rest of the week is typically fast food and most of my snacks are sugary packaged food. The result is I'm 5'9" and weight 145 pounds. Of course I lift weights and hit the exercise bike at least once a week (preferably two to three times), I walk the dog at least three or four days a week and try to jog to in from the parking lot to work rather than walking (with two laptops on my back). Maybe I just burn calories faster than the normal person but I think it is more about putting in the effort.

      YMMV.

    33. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good for you
      you are so much better than us
      we dont care what you eat

    34. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just be careful about being too strict on your salt intake. Salt is like water, is there a minimum and a maximum intake (depending on activity levels, temperature, etc) and you should stay in that range. The result of ignoring this is death.

      This is especially true if you prepare most of your own food. Under no circumstances should salt be eliminated from your diet.

    35. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by avandesande · · Score: 1

      Fruit juices are just as bad as soda. Have you ever squeezed your own orange juice? It takes several oranges to make a restaurant sized serving. You would look at someone funny if they ate 3 or 4 oranges but that's exactly what you are getting when you drink juice.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    36. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Gee, OK, Captain Perfect Diet.

    37. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I buy my bread from an actual bakery. Its 6 dollars a loaf instead of 1 but it tastes flipping amazing comparatively.

    38. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by JazzLad · · Score: 1

      I read that, many (most? all? duhno) artificial sweeteners do, but according to the Japanese (I am too lazy to look it up for you), Stevia (not an artificial sweetener) does not. There is evidence it may be good for Diabetics beyond replacing sugar with it.

      --
      "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
    39. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Source? Quoting from what?

    40. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by DutchUncle · · Score: 1

      Concur. I did Atkins pretty strictly for a year, and it is amazing how sweet fruit tastes when you only eat it rarely. Gives one a different appreciation of history and/or old literature, too, when they make a big deal out of berries and other foods each being available for a brief time of the year, and "exotic" fruits only being available after traveling to far-off lands (rather than everything being shipped halfway around the planet).

    41. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Krishnoid · · Score: 1

      Oh, but at night I take out my strongbox that I keep under lock and key
      And I take it off to my closet, where nobody else can see
      I open that door so slowly, take a peek up north and south
      Then I pull out a Hostess Twinkie, and I pop it in my mouth!

                                                                              -- Junk Food Junkie
                                                                              -- Larry Groce

    42. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Lumpy · · Score: 1

      And all of that is good for you. Although the 40's of american piss water beer is a waste of time. Drink some real beer that you cant see through.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    43. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      no, that isnt rocket science, not even remotely.

      Soy doesn't lower testosterone directly, but it does guide it. It doesn't in any way cause concern, however.

    44. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes carrots are sweet, especially right from the garden. The carrots that most grocery stores have are pretty much crap. You want to know what else is sweet raw and right from the ground, potatoes. You wouldn't think so, but they are.

      A lump of starch is sweet? I'm shocked

    45. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by Alomex · · Score: 1

      Don't tell anyone, but I'm using this web site I discovered called Google. It's full of useful tidbits like that. I don't know how it does it, but if I ask for "raw potato alkaloid" I get tens of thousands of matches including many reputable sources like FDA.

      But please, I must insist, please keep this Google thing just between you and me. I'm afraid that if many more people hear about it it would become overloaded and not be there anymore.

    46. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by 3.5+stripes · · Score: 1

      Sooner or later, you'll have diabeetus. Enjoy eating crap while you can!

      --


      He tried to kill me with a forklift!
    47. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by thejynxed · · Score: 1

      Well yeah, because potatoes are in the same family (Solanaceae) as nightshade and raw potatoes exhibit the exact same alkaloids (at a reduced concentration).

      "The family includes the Datura or Jimson weed, eggplant, mandrake, deadly nightshade or belladonna, capsicum (paprika, chile pepper), potato, tobacco, tomato, and petunia."

      --
      @Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
    48. Re:Mostly because our food is shit. by jwhitener · · Score: 1

      Stop eating at any restaurants

      You must have horrible restaurants where you are from, or are calling fast food places "restaurants".

      Rather than not eating at restaurants, you should say "learn to recognize non-processed food and order healthier food combinations when you go out" or "eat at restaurants where the owner(s)' state on the web site that they try to use local, organic, healthy, etc.." or "eat at places where everything is made from scratch".

      http://www.seasonsandregions.com/#!menu/c21ei I order the cafe meals pretty often. Dinners less so. Everything is made from scratch. The owner has their own farm and brings in heirloom fruits and veggies.
      http://sancheztaqueriapdx.com/photos_taqueria_.html - More fats and lards used in some mexican cooking. But everything is made from scratch. Even the tortillas.

      Or look for deli's or super markets that have good cooked food offerings. Not the major ones like Fred Meyers, Safeway, etc.. but local smaller places, if you have them.
      http://www.newseasonsmarket.com/our-departments/deli
      http://www.marketofchoice.com/
      http://www.worldfoodsportland.com/deli-catering.html

      Or maybe I'm deluded and spoiled in PDX. Are there moderately sized or larger towns that don't have healthy restaurants and region supermarkets with 'from scratch' deli's?

  8. Mad Men by turkeydance · · Score: 1

    equal Mad Women

  9. Point was made but wrong by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The summary mentioned a height increase but only of an inch and only account for 10% of the gain, not two inches and half of the gain as the person you were responding to noting. If nothing else he was correcting a bad summary.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Point was made but wrong by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Informative

      If nothing else he was correcting a bad summary.

      No he isn't. The summary is correct, and he is wrong. Americans are one inch taller than in 1960, not two inches. In 1960 the average man was 5'8", today he is 5'9". The average women went from 5'3" to 5'4".

    2. Re:Point was made but wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height says the average American male is 5' 9.5"; this is further broken down as:

      5' 9.5 for African Americans, 20–39
      5' 7.5 for Hispanic/Latino Americans, 20–39
      5' 10 for Non-Hispanic White Americans, 20–39

    3. Re:Point was made but wrong by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

      But you are assuming the data from the article is correct, which as the other AC to responded pointed out seems not to be.

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    4. Re:Point was made but wrong by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height says the average American male is 5' 9.5"

      No, it says the average American male between the ages of 20 and 29 is 5'9.5". Since older people tend to be shorter, the overall average is going to be less.

    5. Re:Point was made but wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If the article is incorrect about height, why assume it's correct on weight?

      I would assume they are using consistent source data (and verify, of course, if I cared), so we can't just introduce our own data to 1/4 of the issue and expect the numbers to still be meaningful.

    6. Re:Point was made but wrong by davester666 · · Score: 0

      Thankfully, I'm 45, 6'5" and 260 lbs, so I can crush all you puny humans.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    7. Re:Point was made but wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Jesus, so much arguing over nothing. BUT CAPS AND BOLD WORKS!!!

      Idiots.

    8. Re:Point was made but wrong by rockout · · Score: 1

      Good, here's one that shows average height gain from ages 20-74.

      The report, Mean Body Weight, Height, and Body Mass Index (BMI) 1960-2002: United States, prepared by CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, shows that the average height of a man aged 20-74 years increased from just over 5'8" in 1960 to 5'9½" in 2002, while the average height of a woman the same age increased from slightly over 5'3" 1960 to 5'4" in 2002.

      http://www.cdc.gov/media/pressrel/r041027.htm

      Now I suppose you could try and tell me that we've gained another inch between 2002-2015, but I'd like to see a source for that, just as I'd like to see a source for the OP's opinion that we gained 2 inches overall.

      --
      I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
    9. Re:Point was made but wrong by Mab_Mass · · Score: 1

      No he isn't. The summary is correct, and he is wrong. Americans are one inch taller than in 1960, not two inches. In 1960 the average man was 5'8", today he is 5'9". The average women went from 5'3" to 5'4".

      So... an inch for men and an inch for women. That makes 2 inches.

      *ducks*

    10. Re:Point was made but wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're both wrong. The summary is wrong, in fact, other than me, EVERYONE IS WRONG. Just like everyone else.

      I am an American, and I'm INFINITELY taller than I was in the 1960's, when I was basically a single cell in my mother's lower abdomen, and a precursor to a sperm cell in one, (the left, I suspect, though it could just as easily have been from the right) of my father's testicles. Full disclosure... at the time, my mother might not have been an American yet, (she immigrated from another country). My father's testes were BOTH American, however, so whichever one I came from... but I digress.

      Back then, I could manage to be in two places at once, a trick I've lost the ability to do, although I am WAY taller now.

    11. Re:Point was made but wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's this "inch" unit you keep talking about? Aren't height measured in centimeters?

    12. Re:Point was made but wrong by RivenAleem · · Score: 1

      I don't know, someone born in the 60's was likely to have gained much more than 2 inches since then. Though they sure would have put on a lot of weight too.

  10. Re:So what's that in metric? by jellomizer · · Score: 0

    Also to note, the ideal figure is also of a more trimmed and muscular, for men and women. Part of proper body training for both sexes requires weight training. This adds weight, but it is a good weight.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  11. As a 163-pound guy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My one and only rule when it comes to dating, is I won't date a girl who weighs heavier than me. This alone puts over 50% of women out of my dating pool.

    1. Re:As a 163-pound guy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      How much is that 50% reduced once they find out you live in your parents basement?

    2. Re:As a 163-pound guy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What if she is several inches taller than you? (Oh, and is blessed with nice flotation devices)? You could be missing out on something good.

    3. Re:As a 163-pound guy by x0ra · · Score: 1

      you shouldn't date any girl weighting above 80% of your own weight... which pretty much render the pool of available girl pretty damn thin...

    4. Re:As a 163-pound guy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well then stop being such a sissy pussy faggot and gain some mass, you fucking stick.

    5. Re:As a 163-pound guy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're a manlet or a twig. Most women aren't interested in you.

    6. Re:As a 163-pound guy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Still bitter, eh? ;)

    7. Re:As a 163-pound guy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You can date her, just remember the three words that will save your life: "I'm on top"

    8. Re: As a 163-pound guy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nothing wrong with a heavier girl being on top, especially if she's seated in the right place.. Mmm....

    9. Re:As a 163-pound guy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      163lbs equals a perfectly normal 74kg. Unless he is more than 2 metres tall, he is not a twig

    10. Re:As a 163-pound guy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thats rather twig like.

    11. Re:As a 163-pound guy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Newsflash: most women are not into fat guys.

  12. It's not my fault! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's all that high-fructose corn syrup the food industry (in cahoots with the FDA) is forcing me to consume.

    Everybody knows fructose is processed in the liver just like alcohol, so the more you drink the more addicted you get! That's the real reason Coke switched to HFCS in the 80s, to make us all a mass of shaking jelly sugar addicts.

  13. Which Woman Did They Check? by Greyfox · · Score: 5, Funny

    If her name was Caitlyn and she had big manly hands, it's likely your average woman WAS a 1960s man.

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    1. Re:Which Woman Did They Check? by rahvin112 · · Score: 1

      Not likely, the 1960's guy was completely in the closet. He did his dick sucking private and when he put his wife's clothes on he made sure she wasn't around.

    2. Re:Which Woman Did They Check? by vandelais · · Score: 1

      Just like his dear papa.

      --
      Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
    3. Re:Which Woman Did They Check? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and it works to the tune of Lola

      la-la-la-la-Lola,,,,

  14. Interesting hypothesis by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 0

    the corn subsidies and the silly food pyramid.

    We eat too much, we exercise too little, and we eat the wrong things.

    More fruits, veg, and yes meat... and less starchy food.

    As to getting people to move their fat asses every so often... good luck with that.

    Out of curiosity, what observations would invalidate your hypothesis, Mr. "random some guy on the internet"?

    If there were, for example, a rise in obesity in 6-month old babies - would that invalidate the hypothesis, or does it simple mean the 6-month old babies need to get out and exercise more?

    How about lab animals? If lab animals grown with the same diet and same exercise regimens were getting progressively more obese over the last few decades, would that invalidate your views, or does it mean that the lab rats should just cut down on the calories?

    A lot of people expound the virtues of this-or-that theory of obesity, there's thousands of miracle cure diets and theories of nutrition to choose from. Do I want the primitive diet? The all-meat diet? The vegetarian diet? The new fancy diet from some genuine charlatan interviewed on Oprah? (It's a diet made by a doctor... and it really works!!!)

    How about basic thermodynamics? If I reduce my food intake, I'm guaranteed to lose weight... right? It's basic thermodynamics after all.

    How about we all read up on the subject and look at some evidence. Nothing in people's diet - either type or amount - explains the rise of obesity in our culture, and neither does anything related to lifestyle.

    If you have an alternate explanation, I'd like to hear it. Otherwise, stop shouting debunked views and commonly-held myths.

    Modern obesity has nothing to do with diet, exercise, or lifestyle.

    1. Re:Interesting hypothesis by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      As to the sort of proof... I mean for any kind of firm scientific position you need to have some empirical evidence. My position is admittedly my own guess as to the issue. But your point about temperature, some new chemical in our environment. or a virus is possible.

      I question the virus... I think we'd find that. I'm not sure about the chemical.

      I think what you'd want to do is feed the mouse some food that is linked to the conventional human food supply chain. And then feed another group of rats something that is specially grown under very controlled circumstances.

      As to your hostility, my views aren't actually debunked until you've proven them wrong.

      Your point could be irrelevant. You don't know. It could all be a coincidence. You don't know.

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    2. Re:Interesting hypothesis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nothing in people's diet - either type or amount - explains the rise of obesity in our culture, and neither does anything related to lifestyle.

      The rise in obesity matches the vaccination rates pretty well, although its not clear how reliable that data is. Check the data from here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11331125. Also:

      While vaccine manufacturing regulations require elimination of exogenous retroviral infections from source chickens, these regulations do not address the presence of endogenous retroviruses because such particles were not previously known to be associated with chick cell-derived vaccines.

      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC114852/

      Canine distemper virus (CDV) was the first virus linked to obesity.4 CDV is a morbillivirus antigenically related to measles, which infects dogs and a wide range of carnivores.
              [...]
              Avian leucosis viruses (AVL) are retroviruses that may induce neoplastic growth such as B-cell lymphomas, proliferative disorders such as osteopetrosis and chronic degenerative diseases, such as anaemia and immunosuppresion.5 Rous-associated virus 7 (RAV-7) is an AVL that causes an obesity syndrome in chickens.
              [...]
              Moreover, human viral vaccines (mumps, measles, yellow fever) that are manufactured by growing the vaccine-virus in chicken eggs may carry AVL.25, 26

              At present there is no report of RAV-7 human infection and whether humans are susceptible to AVL infection is a matter that requires investigation.26

      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17420782

      Eh, maybe? More data needed I think.

    3. Re:Interesting hypothesis by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

      well, it wouldn't mr. other random guy on the internet; see obese mothers tend to have heavier babies. If a fetus is being marinated in insulin, there's a good chance that baby will grow up to be obese. Please try to contradict that.

      I'd also have to counter, the rise in obesity tracks very, very, very well to the rise in carbohydrate consumption.

    4. Re:Interesting hypothesis by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 1

      Modern obesity has nothing to do with diet, exercise, or lifestyle.

      So it's all genetics then?

      If you eat too much, don't exercise, and don't sleep enough, of course a person will get obese. Perhaps not when you are young, but most people do not maintain the metabolism of their youth all of their life.

      The portions of food we eat in the US are ridiculous. And the quality of food, particularly for the poor, is nutritionally abysmal. More jobs than ever before entail sitting on our ass for extended periods of time and for longer hours than in the past. Our entertainment also tends to consist of sitting on our ass even more. So it's probably a combination of the three.

    5. Re:Interesting hypothesis by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      If there were, for example, a rise in obesity in 6-month old babies - would that invalidate the hypothesis, or does it simple mean the 6-month old babies need to get out and exercise more?

      It could also mean that the mothers are just too goddamn fat, eating foods filled with artificial hormones and other shit out of a Monsanto scientist's fever dream.

      People are getting fatter, so let's see...what's the biggest change in our food supply over the past twenty years? What is the biggest change in the provenance of the food that people buy in stores since say, 1994? How has farming changed over the past 20 years and how has that change been reflected in the most popular foods?

      Let's all act like it's not a coincidence that people have gotten fatter while factory-raised cattle have gotten fatter and chickens have gotten fatter and pigs have gotten fatter and even motherfucking farm-raised fish have gotten fatter.

      Think about this tomorrow when you take a shower and look down and realize your tits have gotten as big as your moms. So big in fact, that you can no longer see your pecker.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    6. Re:Interesting hypothesis by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      I think what you'd want to do is feed the mouse some food that is linked to the conventional human food supply chain.

      And do that over the course of thirty years. Oh wait...mice don't live thirty years and they don't reproduce when they're thirty years old.

      Lab mice live maybe 6 months. How much are you going to learn about what happens to people who eat the same shit for 30 years from creatures that live six months?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    7. Re:Interesting hypothesis by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      Nope.

      Modern mouse right now fed food linked to the human food chain RIGHT NOW... versus some hermetically sealed mouse eating hydroponically grown whatever.

      And while you're at it, have some of the mice in one temperature environment and some others in another temperature environment.

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    8. Re:Interesting hypothesis by master_kaos · · Score: 1

      Oh really? Funny.. I used to eat like shit and do zero exercise and ballooned up to 350lbs. in the past 9 months I ate less, exercised more, and lost 85lbs. So how exactly was my lifestyle, exercise, and diet not the cause of my obesity? (mind you I am still obese, but if I keep on track within 6 or so months I should be down to overweight instead of obese) 3 of my friends who used to be overweight/obese lost weight the same way I did.

      A lot of kids seem to stay inside and play videogames instead of playing out doors. A lot of people have way more sedentary jobs then they did 60 years ago. Portion sizes are a lot bigger than they did 60 years ago. My parents never seen a "big gulp"/super big gulp/ double big gulp growing up. Seriously, who drinks over 1L of pop in a sitting??? They also would have a soda drink as a treat on special occasions, not every single day or heaven forbid, multiple servings per day.

      You go to a theatre and one person will be eating a bucket of popcorn that should be enough for a family of five. Probably extra artificial butter on it too. People will order a large pizza and eat the entire thing themselves, when it used to feed a family of four.

    9. Re:Interesting hypothesis by Totenglocke · · Score: 1

      Modern obesity has nothing to do with diet, exercise, or lifestyle.

      Ah, I see we have a Fat Ass - er, Fat Accceptance proponent. Anyone can lose weight by eating fewer calories than they burn, people like you just like to make excuses for why you're too lazy to do it. Also, I was fat myself (just about to cross into obese-land) and I've lose over 25% of my body weight - so yes, I know exactly what it takes to lose weight.

      --
      "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
    10. Re:Interesting hypothesis by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      If you have an alternate explanation, I'd like to hear it. Otherwise, stop shouting debunked views and commonly-held myths.

      I lost 50lbs in the past year by switching to the low-carb lifestyle, after listening to several engineers come to the same conclusion. Mostly meat, eggs, nuts/seeds, and veggies now. I'm not eating the average 100lbs of sugar and gods-know how many pounds of pasta the average American is, but I have added back in small amounts of rice and potato after getting to my target weight.

      I'm probably eating more like an 1899 person than a 1999 person. Maybe a 999 person too (who had a food supply to speak of). The middle of the grocery store is a wasteland, and forget about eating from a convenience store. The nature of the food supply has changed dramatically and that appears to be a sufficient explanation.

      I've also stopped watching commercial TV shows, which might help, but I do waste time on social media so my couch time is only reduced slightly.

      --
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      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    11. Re:Interesting hypothesis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fat mothers create fat babies. Epigenetics is a bitch.

    12. Re:Interesting hypothesis by stoned_ritual · · Score: 1

      The portions of food we eat in the US are ridiculous. And the quality of food, particularly for the poor, is nutritionally abysmal. More jobs than ever before entail sitting on our ass for extended periods of time and for longer hours than in the past. Our entertainment also tends to consist of sitting on our ass even more. So it's probably a combination of the three.

      I still don't get why portion size is so big, considering that 40 percent of our food is thrown in the fucking trash.

  15. Bodyfat percentage, not total weight, please. by kheldan · · Score: 1

    Total bodyweight is misleading and I'm a little dismayed that we're still discussing things in those terms. I'm ~195 pounds, but I have 10% or less bodyfat percentage. Could we please get some statistics in here with regards to average bodyfat percentage instead of just bodyweight? It's much more significant than just bodyweight.

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    1. Re:Bodyfat percentage, not total weight, please. by Shados · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Significant to have scientifically sound data, yes.

      Significant to understand the problem, no. I just have to take a look outside to realize that even adjusted for muscle mass/body fat percentage would be an insignificant ripple in the data.

    2. Re:Bodyfat percentage, not total weight, please. by x0ra · · Score: 1

      Given that women very hardly put on any muscle, your comments is hardly relevant. Even Dana Linn Bailey (and her gossip'ed 'roid uses) hardly goes above 135lb off-season. Above 140lb of lean muscle mass, women bodybuilders hardly look feminine anymore.

    3. Re:Bodyfat percentage, not total weight, please. by kheldan · · Score: 1

      If people would have a DEXA scan done once a year just to tell them what their body composition was, they'd have a much more realistic idea of how much weight they need to lose to be in a 'healthy' range, and over time they'd have a better idea of how any weight loss efforts (including diet and exercise) are actually working for them. Having only what the scale is telling you as your only datapoint isn't a good idea since it can be highly misleading.

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    4. Re:Bodyfat percentage, not total weight, please. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      DLB is known for being and staying shredded... She's hardly typical of female bodybuilders let alone female athletes let alone females in general.

  16. We could just raise wages by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    Obesity is most common with the working poor. It's not too surprising. Cheap junk food and TV is about the only pleasure they have left what with smoking being a no-no

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    1. Re:We could just raise wages by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      I think the rich being thinner has more to do with better food and better exercise.

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    2. Re:We could just raise wages by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No. It's about having better impulse control.

      Poor people are also much more likely to have 5 children each with a different person. Maintaining a healthy weight requires some degree of effort and discipline. People that never adequately prepared for their future are simply demonstrating the same faults in their eating habits as they have done in other things.

      Being poor doesn't eliminate the possibility of doing better. People like that are just less likely to stay poor (been there, done that).

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    3. Re:We could just raise wages by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      Poor people are also much more likely to have 5 children each with a different person.

      So are professional athletes.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    4. Re:We could just raise wages by dave420 · · Score: 1

      So you are basing your entire theory on a generalisation you've made. Clever boy!

    5. Re:We could just raise wages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Poor people are also much more likely to have 5 children each with a different person.

      So are professional athletes.

      Most of whom become professional athletes early in life, most from poor families.

    6. Re:We could just raise wages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      so many professional athletes are just poor people with high paying jobs.

    7. Re:We could just raise wages by avandesande · · Score: 1

      You don't believe that statistically poor people have lower impulse control? There are lots of poor people that are thin too...

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    8. Re:We could just raise wages by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 1

      No. It's about having better impulse control.

      Poor people are also much more likely to have 5 children each with a different person. Maintaining a healthy weight requires some degree of effort and discipline. People that never adequately prepared for their future are simply demonstrating the same faults in their eating habits as they have done in other things.

      Yeah... those darn poor people. If only they realized that they need to STOP BEING POOR! Then they'd be so much better off!

      (Hint: Correlation does not equal causation in your analysis.)

      Being poor doesn't eliminate the possibility of doing better.

      No, it doesn't. But it can make it a lot harder to accomplish a number of things. And there are many studies showing significant impacts after years of being poor -- physically, mentally, etc. -- which you can't just dismiss and say "DO BETTER, ya poor slob!"

      I feel sorry for people who don't get it. You implied that you were worse off, and you've done better for yourself. Congratulations. But you're like the guy who was feeling down in his life a little and then got motivated -- but you turn and look at the person with clinical depression, which could be caused by a chemical imbalance or years of mental problems... and you just say, "HEY! Just get your darn body out'a bed in the morning! How hard is it? Look... I did it! All it takes is a little effort!"

      I'm glad that you've found a way to better yourself. But it's not that easy for a lot of people.

      And what's your explanation here? If poor people lack pervasive impulse control, as you suggest, does that mean they are genetically determined to be poor? Well, no -- that's refuted by numerous studies of adoptions that have shown that poor kids can end up doing perfectly well when raised in rich families. So it doesn't seem to be genetic (or at least MOST of the explanation isn't genetic).

      Which means it's primarily caused by some sort of environmental factor. Poor people look around at people surrounding them, and they imitate them. Kids imitate parents. You can look at studies like the differences in ways that poor parents talk to and interact with their kids, which causes kids to behave differently from rich kids and reinforces their socioeconomic status, for example.

      Poor people don't just "have" impulse control problems -- if they do have them, it's fundamentally engrained in the culture surrounding them which they probably observe from their childhood years. If you spend many, many years believing that X is "normal," it can be hard to turn things around... or to see another possible way of behaving. More importantly -- your body and your mind can "fight" you and try to lead you back to what you've grown up thinking is "normal."

      And then when you look at "convenience foods" that are loaded with crap and engineered to produce cravings for them (which they are) or to produce weird reactions in our bodies that would not even occur when our ancestors ate unprocessed foods hundreds of thousands of years ago, you realize that people who end up eating cheap, convenient food because they don't have a lot of money and are too tired to cook meals themselves after working double shifts all the time... well, they might just end up with screwed up biochemistry in their bodies, which will contribute to weight gain.

      As you say:

      Maintaining a healthy weight requires some degree of effort and discipline.

      While that's true, it wasn't true for basically the entire history of civilization until the past couple generations. Most people for almost all of history didn't have excess food just lying around. Only the rich could afford to be fat. The poor people were just struggling usually to get enough calories to survive while they did backbreaking labor. So you didn't need "effort and discipline" to maintain a healthy weight -- you were lucky enough to have enough calories

    9. Re:We could just raise wages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most of them are/were poor people who got lucky and got out of the environment.

    10. Re:We could just raise wages by master_kaos · · Score: 1

      pretty much, because you see how many go broke within a few years after their career is over?

    11. Re: We could just raise wages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is statistically poor? Is it like statistically significant?

    12. Re:We could just raise wages by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      Poor people are also much more likely to have 5 children each with a different person.

      So are professional athletes.

      And Strom Thurmond.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    13. Re:We could just raise wages by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      No. It's about having better impulse control.

      Poor people are also much more likely to have 5 children each with a different person. Maintaining a healthy weight requires some degree of effort and discipline. People that never adequately prepared for their future are simply demonstrating the same faults in their eating habits as they have done in other things.

      Being poor doesn't eliminate the possibility of doing better. People like that are just less likely to stay poor (been there, done that).

      As every good conservative knows, that's the same reason black people are poor.
      " In fact, the same weak impulse control that leads to such high crime rates among young black males inevitably means more disruptive behavior in school."
      http://www.nationalreview.com/...

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    14. Re:We could just raise wages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. It's about having better impulse control.

      Poor people are also much more likely to have 5 children each with a different person. Maintaining a healthy weight requires some degree of effort and discipline. People that never adequately prepared for their future are simply demonstrating the same faults in their eating habits as they have done in other things.

      Being poor doesn't eliminate the possibility of doing better. People like that are just less likely to stay poor (been there, done that).

      As a person that has more than 1/2 of the family that has type 2 diabetes and that exercise and all eat right according to the current guidelines put forth by research showing that the food pyramid and the high carb low fat diet was all a lot of bullshit... I am annoyed by people like you that want to imply that diabetes and obesity are 100% a laziness and poor decision making problem. Try having an amount of body fat around the middle that you could run 30 miles a day until your joints wear out, eat a healthy diet and burn more than 2x what you take in calorically and your body finds a way to turn that all back into glycogen in the liver and squirt it back out into the blood and in such amounts that it is high blood sugar and then that ending up getting stored as fat again. That is where a lot of people are stuck and NEWS FLASH ASSHOLE, we workout, we are more active than you are by a large margin! Drop the holier than though attitude!

  17. HOwever... by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 5, Funny

    The one-inch gain in height was dwarfed (so to speak) by the six-inch gain in heights listed on online dating sites.

    1. Re:HOwever... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So true! I remember those 1960s online dating sites, and back then everyone was much more honest.

    2. Re:HOwever... by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 1

      They didn't have online dating sites back in the 1960s. You had Computer Dating.

  18. Re:So what's that in metric? by antiperimetaparalogo · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well, weight training "adds weight" (muscle), but in most normal cases (other than low fat people who train very hard), i.e., overweight/obese people, it helps lowering their weight since the muscle they build burns fat even while not exercising (just by existing at rest).

    --
    Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
  19. This seems incredibly backward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's cool to fantasise about changing ourselves by changing everything else through the most convoluted means, like not-at-all-controversial genetic tinkering, poking around with triggers and whatnot. But really, we don't have to go there and run the risks with all that poking our noses into stuff we don't understand at all well yet--whatever the corporations deploying the tech may claim. Come up with a less broken education system that includes the ethic that caring poorly for your body reflects poorly on you as an individual -- "mens sana in corpore sano" -- and in a few short decades the fat will dwindle.

    You can already see this happen of our own volition, but you can steer it a bit by amending the highschool curriculum. We're trainable animals, so we're trainable to take proper care of ourselves. It's fairly simple, but it does require knowing how the thing works.

    And, of course, IQ is really not that interesting a metric. It's what you do with it. We have lots of undereducated people doing stupid stuff, blaming everyone else, even everything else, for their own continued failures. We have very smart very well educated people still doing incredibly stupid stuff. That should show you that merely pouring knowledge on top of lots of IQ points doesn't really help, so upping the IQ artificially --should this be possible-- of the entire population isn't going to help either. We can start with figuring out how to get the maximum out of the IQ points we do have available. That would already do away with most of the moronics, and after that, ever so slowly, the overall IQ will rise too.

    What we need isn't more technology, but more wisdom. We have so much, and yet achieve so little. So we need more "knowing what to do with what we have".

    1. Re:This seems incredibly backward by Karmashock · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The anti gene lobby is about as reasonable as the anti nuclear lobby and I don't have a lot of patience for either.

      As to the idea of just fixing everything through education... that's a stop gap at best. Long term we're going to genetically engineer ourselves and our food.

      We stand at the cusp of the third revolution evolution on this planet.

      First we had random mutation.
      Second we had sexual selection.
      Third we're going to have intelligent design.

      Its happening. All you can do is slow it down a little. That's it. Nothing more.

      I don't see the point. I'd just assume embrace it especially since it is the only hope most of us have for much expanded lifetimes. Yes, I want to live longer. Its in my blood. I make no apologies and offer no excuses for it.

      As to IQ not being interesting, you're not understanding the impact that stupid people have on society or the benefits of having a society of geniuses.

      As to more wisdom etc, don't talk to me about not wanting more technology on an internet forum. Go form a drum circle somewhere if you want to sell that.

      Again, I just have very little patience for this new age hippy dippy Luddite stuff. Possibly you don't see yourself that way. Well, I don't see the genetics issue the way you do either. You're suggesting it is unwise. I disagree. I think it is extremely wise. I see not doing it as unwise.

      Wise and unwise is often used as a code word for ideological dogma. hold this arbitrary code and you're wise. Don't do it and you're unwise. Its totally unlinked to any empirical measure of wisdom.

      Lets look at what our society has accomplished with my mentality. You see risks. You're worried about things. But look at what we've done. We wouldn't have this without that boldness.

      So if you want to preach the virtues of your philosophy, please show me what your philosophy has ever accomplished? Because I don't see it.

      My intention is not to be rude or hurt your feelings. My point is rather to be brutally honest because frankly this is too important for that nonsense.

      Again, it is going to happen. You cannot stop it. All you can do is slow it down. That's it. Nothing more. What is that worth? Not a whole lot. You might as well embrace it. Its going to happen regardless.

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    2. Re:This seems incredibly backward by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

      The anti gene lobby is about as reasonable as the anti nuclear lobby and I don't have a lot of patience for either.

      In other words, they actually know what they are talking about and you are too full of yourself to see that?

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    3. Re:This seems incredibly backward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The anti gene lobby is about as reasonable as the anti nuclear lobby and I don't have a lot of patience for either.

      I wasn't aware I was part of a lobbying group you could therefore conveniently ignore.

      As to the idea of just fixing everything through education... that's a stop gap at best.

      Because we got where we are on intuition alone. Even our computers are intuitive!

      Long term we're going to genetically engineer ourselves and our food.

      That's going to happen anyway because... you say so? Golly gee your argument is very persuasive.

      For everything you say is true, by simple merit of you saying so, and anyone who disagrees is simply... not worth the time to convince.

      I salute the efficiency of your arguings, good sir. Clearly, we're done here.

    4. Re:This seems incredibly backward by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      As to what you didn't know and now know... now you know. :)

      As to things happening because I say so... no... The sun is going to rise in the east because if you understand the forces at play you know it will. You also know it will set in the west.

      It doesn't do it because I say so. It does it because if you know what you're talking about you know it is inevitable.

      There is an advantage to doing it. You're afraid of new technologies that likely were in scifi horror movies that spooked you. And so you and people like you will be afraid of it. Just like the people that thought atom bombs would ignite the atmosphere.

      You're wrong. The tech will be exploited and employed. The only thing slowing it down is people like you and you can't stop it. You can only slow it down. And will the next generation that comes after have the same fears? Probably not. Which means when you die... it will accelerate in its exploitation and employment.

      You cannot stop it. Not because I say but because YOU CANNOT STOP IT.

      As to us being done, yes... you're not rational so I have no opportunity to reason with you. Your position is based on ideology and dogma. I don't respect it and give it no quarter.

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    5. Re:This seems incredibly backward by Tyler+Durden · · Score: 1

      As to IQ not being interesting, you're not understanding the impact that stupid people have on society or the benefits of having a society of geniuses.

      I think you're missing his point about IQ. Even though we humans may be the only animal capable of rational thought, we actually aren't all that rational. People with high IQs do stupid shit as frequently as those with low IQs. They just have more complex, convoluted arguments to convince themselves they're right in situations where their motivations are actually irrational. It takes a bit of wisdom to step back and see the difference.

      Lets look at what our society has accomplished with my mentality

      Very rapid change in a short amount of time. Some of it very good, some of it very bad. Throwing them together in the same category and considering anyone who questions if all of them are wise as Luddites who belong in drum circles is more than a little disingenuous.

      What you consider inevitablilities are insanely speculative. Life on this planet has been around about 3.5 billion years. Us humans have been around for 250,000 years of it. And just 10,000 years of that since the agricultural revolution. Can the rate of technological advances continue at the same pace as it has since, what, a few hundred years ago? Who knows. Can stable civilizations stay in place at the current pace? Will we find technological solutions to pollutants that are causing a rapid decrease in biodiversity? Will the rapid decline in biodiversity later affect us in ways our civilizations cannot recover from? Who knows. Who knows. Who knows. What you are proposing depends on a long period of human civilizations capable of such advancements that just might not be there.

      If you are concerned about "ideological dogma", you might want to step back from what you've been writing, take a deep breath, and re-read it sometime.

      --
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    6. Re:This seems incredibly backward by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      You're conflating being purely logical with being more intelligent. I didn't say that.

      As to innovation and drum circles. That is your opinion. My opinion is a matter of record and it is not disingenuous. You you say we've done bad things? What? I assume this is environmental stuff? That's massively over hyped. To the contrary, the most technologically advanced societies have superior environmental conditions than do more primitive societies. The deforestation in Africa for example is driven by a lack of fertilizer and fuel. If they had an electrical grid and could afford fertilizer, they'd not need to do that.

      As to your theory that humans will suddenly stagnate before we do the things you don't like or all kill ourselves. Does that not seem just a little convenient to you? Why didn't we do it earlier?

      I'm sure we will stagnate at times. Possibly for thousands of years. Its happened before and it will happen again. We will know dark ages. And the legends, surviving records, pockets of civilization, etc will seed the next golden age. Progress will continue.

      You want to believe we're all going to kill ourselves because we're "unclean" and don't abide by your little religion? Believe what you like.

      Every religion has their judgement day, their Ragnarok, their whatever. Yours is little more than the same old tired boogyman supposed to cow the peasants into submission and fear.

      I am not afraid your fantasies. I don't take your religion any more seriously than I take any other. In fact, religions are often useful. They're good for controlling people. The pity with your little faith is that it is largely controlled by a group of genocidal maniacs. I've listened to the environmental lectures that end with "oh yeah and we have 5 billion too many humans and here is how we get rid of them." And I'm supposed to hear that and find it reasonable.

      Yours is the faith of doom and self destruction. Have no patience or respect for it.

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    7. Re:This seems incredibly backward by Tyler+Durden · · Score: 1

      You you say we've done bad things? What? I assume this is environmental stuff? That's massively over hyped. To the contrary, the most technologically advanced societies have superior environmental conditions than do more primitive societies.

      Well we are in the middle of an extinction event that is largely believed to be caused by humans. This might be notable, yes? Many of the technologically advanced societies have superior environmental conditions because they depend on societies with less stringent regulations so that they can buy stuff on the cheap. You ever wonder what would happen to our economy if all the countries providing materials and services we depended on had the same restrictions we did?

      You assumed very very much about what I'm saying and my beliefs based on very very little. Do you think it's even possible that someone can disagree with you without being deluded or insane? I don't believe in the supernatural myself. Not what most would consider "religious". We may or may not stagnate. It is you who are making the assumption that we will continue to progress on a scale that we could genetically engineer all of our problems away. I'm just saying it's a big assumption.

      All I'm saying is that it's sometimes a good idea to step back and ask where are we going, what are we doing what's useful, what are we doing that's harmful. Just having a battle cry of "Progress!" (progress to what?) just because it seems really really cool might not be enough. Hardly "the faith of doom and destruction." LOL

      --
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    8. Re:This seems incredibly backward by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      In opposite land that would be a very firm argument.

      Since we're not in opposite land, that comment means nothing.

      Make a complete and falsifiable argument please.

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    9. Re:This seems incredibly backward by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      That's at best speculative. We have a better knowledge of extinction rates today then we can possibly extrapolate from the fossil record. Not all species for example are captured in the fossil record and even if they were we haven't found them all.

      So you don't know with great accuracy how great the background excintinction rate is until you look at this period in the fossil record of a few million years in the future. Then you can compare the detectable species from the record that no longer exist with previous eras.

      The other issue with your theory is that it is based on Drake Equation.

      This is drake's equation:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      The basic concept is that you take take the you take the current number of stars in your area of the galaxy and extrapolate that by comparing density and volume to the rest of the galaxy to get the number of stars.

      Then you assume a probability for planets

      Then you assume probability for the number of planets.

      Then you assume a probability for the number of worlds with liquid water.

      Then you assume a probability of the right chemistry for life.

      Then you assume a probability for whether life will evolve.

      Then you assume a probability for whether that life will become complex.

      Then you assume a probability for if the life will be intelligent.

      Then you assume a probability for if the intelligent life will form some kind of civilization.

      Then you assume a probability for the life to form a starfaring interstellar civilization.

      Did you see what happened about a million times in there?

      Anyway, Drake's equation is not valid science but it is frequently used by environmental activists. What they'll do is they'll pick an acre of land... often one under development... they're building a parking lot on it or something. And then they'll cite every species that doesn't live there anymore after the parking lot to be extinct IN THAT AREA. Then they'll assume how much of that happens, then they'll assume how many species die out because of X Y and Z, etc. It's Drake's equation and its bullshit.

      Because I'm sure you're going to call bullshit on me... allow me to name drop someone respectable that agrees with me:
      http://www.s8int.com/crichton....

      Its a fun speech. Whether you agree or not you should be entertained.

      The point is that you're relying largely on the opinion of lobbyists and activists for your information. They're not reliable because they're inherently biased.

      So the whole extinction thing is one I don't especially buy. Are some species going extinct? Sure, welcome to planet earth. That's what the world calls Tuesday. It happens all the time. Niches close and open and species either adapt or die.

      There are a lot of species that are interacting with humanity for example because we create a lot of niches. Our cities are full of pigeons and rats and various insects that feed upon our leavings. And while you probably don't think these species are cute and cuddly, they are adaptable. Don't see nature the way a child sees it. Look at nature the way that NATURE looks at it. All nature cares about is whether you propagate your genes. The dodo was a loser. The spectrum of pathogens that are the common cold are winners.

      Now maybe you'll say "I don't like the kinds of life that are adapting and I'd like to make them less gross, filthy, and generally nasty. Okay. How do we do that?

      The first thing we have to appreciate is that these are species that WANT to integrate with humanity. These guys as unwanted as they are... are the animals that wish to sign on with humanity. They want into our supply network. Okay, lets make that symbiotic instead of parasitic. Just as people integrated dogs, cats, cows, chickens, etc into our world we can integrate pigeons, rats, crows, cockroaches, etc into the system as well. And in some cases that might mean some genet

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    10. Re:This seems incredibly backward by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      One person who failed statistics classes does not prove that nuclear power is inherently dangerous.

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    11. Re:This seems incredibly backward by Tyler+Durden · · Score: 1

      The point is that you're relying largely on the opinion of lobbyists and activists for your information. They're not reliable because they're inherently biased.

      Errrr... no. When I read up on what effects us human have on the environment I keep it to people who study such things for a living, with supporting degrees and hard facts to back up their claims. No need to go on tangents on the Drake Equation or what have you. Just read more into the link I provided with the references to back the claims. No need to judge whether this is a good, bad, or indifferent thing at first. Just get an objective view of what the situation is.

      Sorry, but I can't see the person you linked to as a "respectable" authority on the subject. The times I'd find him respectable is when he's giving advice on writing entertaining thrillers, some of which involve dinosaurs.

      You're correct that species go instinct all the time, and have been far before we ever arrived on the scene. However all the evidence points to us accelerating the process by our actions. The question then becomes, could we be killing off things making our survival more difficult. Whether we're killing off all of the non-gross, filthy and nasty things isn't a huge concern of mine. But I wouldn't discount the attitude completely. We tend to evolve to see beauty in the things that are beneficial to us.

      I don't see how later in your post what you're saying is supposed to raise hair on the back of my neck. Life adapts, and we've bred life to be beneficial to us. It's not exactly a secret. *shrug* If you want to read an excellent account of how life adapts and what impact we've had on the world, try reading The World Without Us sometime. You can see a pretty good excerpt here.

      I'm afraid you've highly over-estimated the adaptability of the human race. We really aren't. Our high intelligent may have origins that go back as far as 2 million years. We live among species that have remain unchanged for HUNDREDS OF MILLION OF YEARS. Don't be so uncertain we're here to last. Our timeline is way too short to have any proven track-record, no matter how shiny our gizmos may appear. You want an adaptable life-form? Look to bacteria. Those suckers were the first to appear on this planet, and they'll be the last to leave when it's burnt up by the sun.

      --
      Happy people make bad consumers.
    12. Re:This seems incredibly backward by Tyler+Durden · · Score: 1

      Change my "be so uncertain" above to "be so certain". Grrrrr...

      --
      Happy people make bad consumers.
    13. Re:This seems incredibly backward by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      Your extinction prediction is based on Drake's equation.

      Anyone using Drake's equation seriously is a quack.

      As to evidence pointing to an accelerating of the process, no it doesn't. The evidence as you put it is Drake's equation.

      As to talk of a world without humans... Not going to happen. We'll out live the cockroaches. Get used to us.

      I have no doubt that marginal populations are going to die occasionally in large numbers. Look at what happens in a third world country every time there is a flood or a heat wave or a tough winter or a fucking earthquake. They die in absurd numbers. The same things hit the first world and we shrug it off. Death tolls tend to be minimal, clean up is fairly rapid, and damage to our nation states tends to be negligible even in the moment.

      A strong civilization can weather hard times. Weak civilizations struggle to survive on the good days. So on the bad they tend to just die.

      I don't know what to tell you with all this doom talk. Its irrational.

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    14. Re:This seems incredibly backward by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

      So you basically say that a person responsible for a design of several nuclear reactors, working for AEG, former director of nuclear department of AEG, General Dynamics and Siemens, knows less about them than a random nuclear wanker on Slashdot? That is Dunning-Kruger at its best.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    15. Re:This seems incredibly backward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's cool to fantasise about changing ourselves by changing everything else through the most convoluted means, like not-at-all-controversial genetic tinkering, poking around with triggers and whatnot. But really, we don't have to go there and run the risks with all that poking our noses into stuff we don't understand at all well yet--whatever the corporations deploying the tech may claim. Come up with a less broken education system that includes the ethic that caring poorly for your body reflects poorly on you as an individual -- "mens sana in corpore sano" -- and in a few short decades the fat will dwindle.

      You can already see this happen of our own volition, but you can steer it a bit by amending the highschool curriculum. We're trainable animals, so we're trainable to take proper care of ourselves. It's fairly simple, but it does require knowing how the thing works.

      And, of course, IQ is really not that interesting a metric. It's what you do with it. We have lots of undereducated people doing stupid stuff, blaming everyone else, even everything else, for their own continued failures. We have very smart very well educated people still doing incredibly stupid stuff. That should show you that merely pouring knowledge on top of lots of IQ points doesn't really help, so upping the IQ artificially --should this be possible-- of the entire population isn't going to help either. We can start with figuring out how to get the maximum out of the IQ points we do have available. That would already do away with most of the moronics, and after that, ever so slowly, the overall IQ will rise too.

      What we need isn't more technology, but more wisdom. We have so much, and yet achieve so little. So we need more "knowing what to do with what we have".

      Damn dude, that is the plot of "Forbidden Planet".. minus Robby the Robot and Leslie Neilson of course.

    16. Re:This seems incredibly backward by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      Yes, as he feels nuclear is more dangerous than other technologies, yet the actual figures disprove that.

      http://www.greenpeace.org/inte...

      As we were talking about Anti-GMO though, it should be pointed out that GMO has been being practiced for 1000s of years with no ill effects, but suddenly we're all going to get cancer from it. No study has shown negative health effects except for farmers who mishandle the herbacide, and that is likely true of any chemical in the concentrations that study was done with.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    17. Re:This seems incredibly backward by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

      Have you read this text? It even explained in the text that the way these statistics are counted are flawed. They are even more flawed because they don't take dangers of uranium mining into account. There is a reason why uranium mining used to be a forced labour kind of job. Besides, how many reactors have you personally designed to judge how safe they are? We have a very nice idiom here in Germany: gefaehrliches Halbwissen. It translates to "dangerous superficial knowledge", something akin to dangerous half-truth, but not quite the same. And this is what most of atomic fanbois have.

      And no, GMO has not been practiced for thousands of years. Selective breeding is not the same as genetic modification - it selects for a certain phenotype. Even making hybrids isn't, because hybrids can only be achieved across closely related species (which, therefore, were a single species recently enough and share the same genes).

      Genetic engineering, on the other hand, inserts completely foreign genes or completely removes genes from a genome.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    18. Re:This seems incredibly backward by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      If we are taking into account the dangers of Uranium mining, are we also taking into account the dangers of coal mining or rare earth mining? Are we also taking into account the dangers of radioactive contamination from coal smoke/fly ash? The dangers of nuclear accidents are also way blown out of proportion as it assumes linear relationships, the more radioactivity released the more deaths, even though through dispersion/dilution, but I guess maybe you believe in homeopathy as well? Right now Germany is very anti nuclear, and so they are building many coal plants to balance the power (as well as buying a crap ton of power from nuclear France), but what is missing there is the fact that Coal plants cause more deaths per unit power than nuclear. The safety of your power infrastructure has gone down significantly, not gone up.

      What you describe as GMO also happens in nature. Viruses/bacteria can transfer genes between species. Also, mitochondria are a foreign body that was transferred into our cells, so even whole organisms are inserted into other organisms by nature.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  20. Re:So what's that in metric? by xevioso · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Don't worry, continentals. You'll be catching up to us soon: http://qz.com/89553/europeans-...

    Well, at least your wine, beer and cheese is better... oh wait, it's not.
    http://www.worldbeercup.org/wi...

  21. And taller? by Culture20 · · Score: 1

    Does heavier necessarily mean fatter?

    1. Re: And taller? by robi5 · · Score: 1

      Correlation is not causation, they may have common causes, for example

      *ducks*

  22. Re:Fasting by psyclone · · Score: 1
  23. Re:Brace yourself... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Go back to /r/fatpeo -- OH WAIT

  24. All Hail Emperor Napoleon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are you really going to let the French tell you how to measure things?

    1. Re:All Hail Emperor Napoleon by Whiteox · · Score: 1

      I've worked with quite a few different measurement systems. As far as the Napoleonic system goes, a French explorer called Barrallier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... used lineal Napoleonic measurements for distance, however most of his map work and diaries were useless as he measured up and down hills instead of proper cartographic methods from point to point. So the height of a mountain was how far it took him to walk it, rather than the height above sea level.
      Austro-Hungarian measures called Vienna Measurement (pre 1876) was supposedly standardised across the Empire, except it wasn't especially on the Hungarian parts which (for example) measured most goods as 'Barrels'. This was ok but were these Pozsony (Pressburg/Bratislava) barrels or the barrel sizes used by other parts of the country? As for area, a 'Hold' could be anything from 1 acre to more than 2 hectares. A Mertfold was exactly 1 (English) mile or around 8 km depending on who you were speaking to. So standardisation and how to use it was a godsend.
      King Sobieski of Poland who came with his army of winged hussars to defeat the Turkish siege of Vienna in 1687 had to use medieval maps of the surrounding area which were quite inaccurate. He still managed to surprise the Turks and drive them off, but this was a turning point in cartography, thereafter proper 'modern' techniques were used.

      --
      Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
    2. Re:All Hail Emperor Napoleon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I still use the Hellenic system:

        finger, palm, span, foot, forearm, cubit, pace, fathom, stadion, milion, league, and stage.

  25. Re:So what's that in metric? by Dahamma · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Not saying the US doesn't have good beer, but that "award" is clearly bullshit if COORS is considered the best "large brewery" in the world. IMO it's the worst in the *US*, and there are a lot of bad large US breweries.

    Anyway, at the high end anyone can make good wine, beer, and cheese. Where Europe really smacks down the US is in the high quality of the basic, low cost items.

  26. Americans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ham planets

  27. Gene-engineer us to eat less by aNonnyMouseCowered · · Score: 1

    "Then of course there is the human body. The body does not NEED exercise to build muscle..."

    If you're going the gene mod route with regard the human body, why not just genetically engineer humans to want to eat less? Should be simpler than turning us all into Arnold Schwarzenegger and save a couple of million of cows and chickens from the endless cycle of rebirth (after we butcher them for one final barbeque).

    1. Re:Gene-engineer us to eat less by Karmashock · · Score: 0

      Because people being inherently fit and healthy is objectively good.

      That's why.

      And that isn't uniformly possible without extensive gene mods on a good portion of the population.

      Look, you don't want to get gene modded? That's your business. Do what you want.

      I've little patience for the technophobia perspective on the fucking internet.

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    2. Re:Gene-engineer us to eat less by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have little patience for anybody who doesn't agree with every pedantic detail of your narrow viewpoint, why do you feel the need to be so specific about technophobia?

    3. Re:Gene-engineer us to eat less by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      Nope. I have little patience for hippy dippy Luddite dogma. Its retrograde stupidity with nothing behind it.

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
  28. Re:So what's that in metric? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1, Interesting

    There is no such thing as "good weight". People like Michael Clarke Duncan still die "young" from heart problems. The strain on the heart for pumping blood is related to the mass pumped through, not the percentage of it that's "fat". Arterial constriction/hardening through lipid action is a separate issue, but for general heart failure, and a variety of heart diseases, there's nothing that indicates there's "good" weight, just that any added is harder.

  29. Re:So what's that in metric? by ganjadude · · Score: 1

    coors owns a LOT of beers now adays. Im not saying you are wrong, but i think you are thinking of only COORS and not the 100 other beers they put out

    --
    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  30. More fit, too. by techno-vampire · · Score: 1

    Americans didn't worry about fitness until JFK started talking about it, and it took years to catch on. Today's adults are far more fit than their parents were and have more muscle mass. That's going to make them heavier, but not fatter. Yes, there are probably more tubs of lard out there now, but the fitness freaks and body builders are helping bring the average up as well. (And, as the BMI doesn't take muscle mass into account, most of them are considered obese even though they have very little body fat.)

    --
    Good, inexpensive web hosting
    1. Re:More fit, too. by PRMan · · Score: 1

      My boss and another guy at work were two very large, very buff black guys. They were in very good shape, especially for their ages. They used to joke that they were both "obese".

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    2. Re:More fit, too. by diakka · · Score: 1

      Hey!, I'm not fat, I'm just big boned!

      Americans have totally lost perspective on what is considered a healthy weight and a healthy diet. People in general consistently underestimate their own body fat percentage, even in the bodybuilding community where there are six-pack abs abound. I'm pretty sure any doctor that would suggest weight loss to patient with a BMI of 25+ alongside a six-pack, wouldn't keep his license for very long, Yet, somehow countless obese people are so delusional that they think that's what happened to them. Denial ain't a river in Egypt.

      I'm sure the folks who do strength training and intense exercise might add something to the statistics, but I'd be very surprised if it skewed the numbers by more than a pound.

      --
      -- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
    3. Re:More fit, too. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do realize that BMI is a measure designed for completely sedentary people (nursing home patients) and the established guidelines are utter nonsense for people with much muscle mass to speak of?

    4. Re:More fit, too. by diakka · · Score: 1

      Sedentary describes about 90% of the US population over 25. Clearly BMI is not a good measure for many folks, but everyone with a weight problem wants to think they're the exception. You're never going to get them to go get an accurate body fat assessment or get them in the gym, because that would require them to actually acknowledge that there's a problem.

      --
      -- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
  31. WHAT!? Increased gravity!? by digitalPhant0m · · Score: 1

    Why are they only telling us now of this isolated increase in gravitational pull? Can they even grasp the consequences!?!? How is this even possible!?!?

    Nevermind. Finally read the summary.

  32. Re:So what's that in metric? by jellomizer · · Score: 1

    There is being overweight from being muscular built, then there is being hulking huge.
    The BMI metric for ideal weight doesn't factor in people who are more built, so it is a healthy weight as the strength is more than adequate to handle the body. But yes if you bulk up, chances are you do this at the trade off of doing cardio work, also bulking up is a lot of low weight reps, so you are not as strong as someone with a more leaner strength build.

    But being 25 lbs heavier in muscle then some one who is just skinny is healthier. Being 100lbs... No so much.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  33. More Dope, More Munchies. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cookie? Candy? Brownie? It's no wonder those clowns are overdosing: does anyone ever eat merely an eighth (1/8) of a cookie? What idiot dreamed up that dosing scheme? I am stunned that the marijuana quack-houses haven't been sued out of business.

  34. Re:So what's that in metric? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I really feel like I don't like seeing BS drama from Reddit spill over to Slashdot.

    For those that don't know, Reddit closed some subforums for reasons that they outlined on the site, among them was one called "FatPeopleHate", which had thousands upon thousands of subscribers. After its closure people started basically attacking Reddit as a forum and its current CEO on the site itself, flooding it with threads and new subforums of an odious and vile nature. Some would consider Reddit's action in closing these subforums to be wrong. However wrong those actions may be, the vitriolic reaction to their closing has been disproportionately worse. This exact topic was the subject of many of the new threads, specifically as a method to evade bans.

    I'm not here to argue about the legitimacy of Reddit's actions, but the reaction from those that felt wronged was absolutely disgusting. Spreading this to other sites like Slashdot where it is not topical to the purpose of the website is simply exacerbating the situation.

  35. What about body fat % by bangular · · Score: 2

    In the age of cheap body fat % measuring devices, why not make body fat % the standard? I'm tall and borderline overweight according to BMI, but I have about 14% body fat percentage. It's much easier to compare across body types with that metric than BMI. Yet I've never had a doctor record my body fat %, only height and weight.

    1. Re:What about body fat % by Trongy · · Score: 3, Informative

      There is an even simpler measurement that correlates well with obesity risks - waist circumference.
      e.g http://www.healthdirect.gov.au...

      No scales or body fat measuring devices are required, only a tape measure.
      The old excuses like being "big boned" or having high muscle mass don't apply.
      Don't focus on weight, which has many confounding factors. If your waistline decreases because you lose abdominal fat, you will be healthier.

    2. Re:What about body fat % by iluvcapra · · Score: 1

      In the age of cheap body fat % measuring devices,

      I have one of these in my scale. I like the idea of it, but it's not remotely specific, the number varies +-20% daily (and this is in the context of a total body water reading that varies by maybe 2% daily). Building up a long history with a moving average might be defensible but I still feel like the "cheap" solution is for entertainment purposes only.

      Hydrometry: accept no substitutes.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    3. Re:What about body fat % by David_Hart · · Score: 1

      In the age of cheap body fat % measuring devices, why not make body fat % the standard? I'm tall and borderline overweight according to BMI, but I have about 14% body fat percentage. It's much easier to compare across body types with that metric than BMI. Yet I've never had a doctor record my body fat %, only height and weight.

      Except for one problem, a recent study (highlighted on 60 minutes) found that older people live longer if they have a bit of extra body fat. One of the reasons posited by the researchers was that their systems have extra energy stores to get them through being sick, etc.

      http://www.cbsnews.com/news/wa...

    4. Re:What about body fat % by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      In the age of cheap body fat % measuring devices, why not make body fat % the standard?

      Because cheap body fat percentage measuring devices are worthless.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    5. Re:What about body fat % by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They use this in the Air Force. The guys under 5'9 laugh at it and the 6'3 muscular Adonis fails his pt test.

  36. Re:So what's that in metric? by Dahamma · · Score: 1

    Sure, they have a bunch of labels, but they are all pretty poor to average at best:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    And of course Coors and Coors Light are still their signature brands. Just because they have a few decent niche brands doesn't mean they should be given a pass for the rest.

  37. Re:So what's that in metric? by fatquack · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A World Beer Cup where only a fraction of breweries outside of the USA participate in?
    Look at the list of participants, for instance for Belgium only 27 breweries (some of which are owned by the same company) are listed, that's like one sixth of the Belgian breweries only.

  38. Re:So what's that in metric? by ganjadude · · Score: 1

    no argument, My favorite brewery is a toss up between lagunitas and rogue. maybe saranac in the summer months

    --
    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  39. Re:So what's that in metric? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    If you ask a typical Republican if they think THE ARNOLD is a real Republican, most would say no and not listen to him.

  40. what took you so long? by buybuydandavis · · Score: 3, Funny

    "U.S. men have been getting bigger too, gaining nearly 30 pounds from the 1960s to 2010"

    Pfftph! I've gained 30 pounds in the last 2 years.

  41. Cage Match: Barack vs Michelle. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    She is preaching "eat healthy" and practicing kickboxing. Meanwhile, he is shoveling food stamps out the door and bankrupting or stone-walling various job creating industries. Want to lose weight? Probably the best thing you can do is be employed. Fat chance in the Pelosi-Reid-Obama economy. Oh well, at least there's hope Harry Reid gets a 3 A.M. phone call asking for the name of a good eye doctor.

  42. Which one would you rather sleep with? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Average 1960s American man versus average 2010s American woman? It's really a tossup, and I'm totally straight!

  43. Pelosi-Reid-Obama Economy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Working poor"? Last I heard, the number of not-working was higher than ever.

  44. In 1960... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In 1960, I weighed 8 pound 4 ounces. So yeah, I gained some too.

  45. Re:So what's that in metric? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh please. He has a heart defect and has given millions to AMA members in order for them to allow him to continue to live. That makes him a hero in their eyes. The AMA hates us and wants us to die, like the rest of their Republican kind. That is why they so often refuse to provide care to the poor. They hate the poor and want them to die.

  46. Let them not eat cake. by GrahamCox · · Score: 1

    Seriously, stop eating all the cake. (For various definitions of "cake" which basically all boil down to much the same stuff - starch+fat+sugar).

  47. yeah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well I'm 6-4 190 so I'm good

  48. Re:So what's that in metric? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And you're thinking of AB/InBev's or SAB Miller's namesake beer and not the other 100+ they each produce either.

    But personally, I agree with Randall Munroe. All beer is disgusting swill, and I refuse to be socially pressured into agreeing with anyones' opinion that it's not.

    Real men drink martinis. Not those fruity things in a martini glass that got popular a while back, and certainly not a damned "vodka martini", whatever that is. A martini is a 10:1 mix of gin and dry vermouth. (Which is why a "vodka martini" is not a martini.) It does not need a fancy glass, garnish, or any other frilly shit. Even the olive is optional, but they're tasty as hell, so I recommend it. It doesn't need to be cold, and a "shaken" one is just proof that you're a damned sissy. If you wanted a refreshing drink, you should've ordered a gin and tonic.

    Martinis are too fancy-sounding? Don't have any vermouth? Drink a brass monkey instead. 1:1:1 mix of vodka, rum, and orange juice. You will have a headache in the morning. Manly.

  49. Re: So what's that in metric? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We have been feeling the fallout of Redit drama for a while now. How many articles on how we need more women in STEM have we had in the last 6 months?

  50. Re:So what's that in metric? by ganjadude · · Score: 1

    if im not drinking GOOD beer (anything that doesnt have a commercial in the US it seems is good, if it has one, its not) im drinking whiskey on the rocks. but thats me

    --
    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  51. Re:So what's that in metric? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Good weight is anything that has a functional use. I need a certain amount of muscle to complete tasks (like pumping blood and moving my fingers), so that's good weight. I also have a certain amount of weight from exercise, which is good for mental health. If it were my career, I would want enough weight to be better at sport X than everyone else, but not an ounce more.

    You can keep filling in examples. It's like any vehicle--you need a certain amount of mass to have it serve any purpose to start with, and increased loads usually correspond to increased mass. Excess that doesn't contribute to propulsion or function is bad weight.

  52. Re:So what's that in metric? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you ask a typical Republican if they think THE ARNOLD is a real Republican, most would say no and not listen to him.

    The typical Republican voter would boo Reagan, if they didn't recognize him from the movies they saw him at the theater... Reagan cut taxes, but he also raised them back up (a tiny bit). No one in the current party will do that.

  53. Big Deal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I was born in the 60s and I've gained about 160lbs since then.

  54. Re:So what's that in metric? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

    I've not seen anything that supports that. The people who are underweight, but not malnutritioned are healthier than those who are "average", so long as they have the same cardio capacity. The underweight marathon runner will be better off than the power lifter who never burns a single calorie aerobically, and the professional football player will be better off than the underweight hacker who walks to the fridge and back as his only exercise. But for the same level of general activity, more weight is *always* worse for you. At least from the studies I've seen. The problem is that getting groups to adequately study is hard, so the studies in general lump people together, and you get the "more muscle is better" because those people do more, not because "muscle" accounts for any of the improvement.

  55. Pregnacy weight? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do these weights include when women were pregnant? If women were pregnant for longer periods of time in the 1960s than in 2010 this may skew the numbers as well. I am referring to averages of time being pregnant relating to weight differences and not the statistics relating to abortions, success births, twins, etc which are increasing.

  56. This is good news!! by EzInKy · · Score: 1

    Women have become softer and more pleasurable to cuddle with!! Who in their right mind would want to snuggle with a bag of bones!!

    --
    Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
  57. chunky chics the norm in North America by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm an expat lived in Asia for almost 30 years. I was watching the NBA finals yesterday morning, and was amazed to see how chunky all the cheerleaders were! All of them, with the exception here and there, looked like they could lose some pounds. I remember when I dated a cheerleader from ASU in the 89-91 time frame, and there was not an inch to be pinched anywhere. I also remember what the entire squad looked like, none of them chunky. How times have changed.

    I've seen the changes in Asia, you never saw obese children 25 years ago anywhere. Now, with few exceptions, every country in the region you see fat kids, and parents feeding them KFC and McGrossalds and ice cream from 711 in the morning.

  58. Re: So what's that in metric? by TWX · · Score: 2

    We have been feeling the fallout of Redit drama for a while now. How many articles on how we need more women in STEM have we had in the last 6 months?

    My wife has a bachelors in mechanical engineering from MIT and works in a field that uses her degree. She has told me that she's tired of hearing "STEM" as it always seems to come from people that do not hold any degree in the hard sciences, or in technology, or in engineering, or in mathematics. If they want to push for people to get degrees in these fields, then they should put their money, time, and energy where their mouth is and go back and get a degree from among those kinds, then start advocating for it once they really know what they're advocating for.

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  59. Re:So what's that in metric? by Jack9 · · Score: 1

    > But being 25 lbs heavier in muscle then some one who is just skinny is healthier

    The definition of "skinny" and "healthier" aren't well defined here. Your major surgical survival rate is better, the more muscle weight that you have (body recovers better with active stores, anesthesia is easier to regulate, and more) . No I don't have a link to a study, but it's the Germans or English or Finnish that posted the data back in the 90's iirc.

    --

    Often wrong but never in doubt.
    I am Jack9.
    Everyone knows me.
  60. Indians Too by ketomax · · Score: 1

    Lead is a Heavy Metal after all.

  61. Re:So what's that in metric? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Coors?! You're citing a beer competition won by Coors? Hahahahahahaha. Ah, fuck me. I peed my pants a little.

    Anyway, while it is pretty well established that American companies make the best beer and wine ( if you define best as whatever is fashionable with beer and wine geeks), that is not what matters to 99% of people 99% of the time. What matters is what you can get at an every-day price in your grocery store.

    I can drink expensive American microbrews about as frequently as your average American. An average American can't eat compte cheese and freshly backed whole grain bread every day. You can get it, but it's a luxury.

  62. Re:So what's that in metric? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A World Beer Cup where only a fraction of breweries outside of the USA participate in?
    Look at the list of participants, for instance for Belgium only 27 breweries (some of which are owned by the same company) are listed, that's like one sixth of the Belgian breweries only.

    Better than the World Series. At least the World Beer Cup has foreign contenders.

  63. A competition in the US about world best beer ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    look it is well known (and I confirmed it by taste) that 95% of the beer sold in the US is shit. There is some small beer production which are better than some german beer, but the same can be true for some small beer production in germany or any other country. But as a general aspect, your average beer sold in the US is far worst than you average beer sold in UK or germany. When people speaks about which beer is better, they are speaking of the mass consumption beer. not the local 1000 bottle a week microbrew.

  64. Same here by aepervius · · Score: 1

    I completely stopped consumption of sweets, though I could not reduce significantely the consumption of starch sugar. I lost 2 pounds over a year without even trying to diet. Maybe in 20 years I'll got an ideal weight ;). But I took up on eating vegetables to attempt to fill my stomach with stuff and fill "full and satieted". When I tasted carrots I was like WTF it tasted sweet like a fruit. I looked it up online and there is a lot of sugars in carrots.

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
    1. Re:Same here by mobby_6kl · · Score: 1

      Don't eat vegetables and fruit that contain a lot of sugar either.

  65. Re:So what's that in metric? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just like all those wine awards that are never blind tests after US wineries started winning them all. Now French wineries continuously win, as God intended.

  66. Re:So what's that in metric? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

    There is no such thing as "good weight".

    Indeed that is correct. It ultimately doesn't matter if you're 18 stone of muscle or fat. It's still the same strain on the heart. That said, it's an awful lot easier to put on fat than muscle. When I use the gym frequently, my overall weight drops even though I put on muscle. That of course is much better overall.

    Also, if you're putting on a lot of muscle,you're almost certainly improving your cardiovascular health by exercising.

    The way in which muscle weight is good in that it stops one from getting much larger amount of non muscle weight in most cases.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  67. Re:So what's that in metric? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

    The trouble with rocks is they remove the flavour and you end up with a glass ofdiluted whisky at the end.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  68. Is this including all the US population? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...because when I visited, there seemed to be an inordinate amount of 'heavy boned' individuals - I'd have expected the figures to be higher frankly!

  69. Re:So what's that in metric? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Frankly, all the beer companies that Coors have bought have started to turn out watered down s**t.....

    Doombar (http://www.sharpsbrewery.co.uk/our-beers/doom-bar.html) isn't what it used to be I swear.....

  70. Re:So what's that in metric? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

    It's not?

    News to me. I looked at the list of participants, in the UK of course. There are some good breweries on the list, but it's a rather short list. CAMRA (the campaign for real ale) runs the Cambridge Beer Festival which has something like 300 beers on tap. And they only get the breweries big enough to go and do a festival. My local offie (it's a posh offie alright?) has a shelf full of local beers, and by local, I mean new breweries within London of which there are now about 15 at the last count.

    I also noticed that the winners seemed to be rather US dominant. I'm not a snob about US beer and there are very many rather good smaller breweries. However, the style is quite distinct from the UK style of beer. The US dominance rather implies that the judges simply prefer the American style.

    They're also rather selective in the styles of beer they award for. For example, they have several different porter styles but are rather astonishingly missing "London Porter". I've also never heard of "Mild" being called "Mild ale" before today.

    Ooo arr I'll be having a pint o' proper job, me love.

    (St Austell was on but didn't win anything)

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  71. Re:So what's that in metric? by skovnymfe · · Score: 1

    Haha, is that the same kind of world cup as the baseball world series?

  72. Re: So what's that in metric? by shitzu · · Score: 1

    I like beer (but i'm from Europe). Also whiskey. But why on earth would you ruin a good whiskey with ice!? I drink mainly single malts, neat, at room temperature - so it has the most flavour. Do you also drink cognac on rocks?

  73. Re:So what's that in metric? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You think beer is disgusting but you like rum?

  74. Americans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    have been the fattest and sickliest people for several decades, mainly due to their over-eating and unhealthy diet, so why is this suddenly news?

  75. GMO's by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think more effort should be put into investigating GMO's affect on the human organism, most likely any unfavourable findings will be buried by Monsanto

  76. .. with smoking? by guacamole · · Score: 2

    Americans are used to eating shitty food, and lots of it. But there is also the issue of .. tobacco smoking. Every time I go to Europe, I see that nearly every second person, men and women, smoke all the time. Tobacco is a great appetite inhibitor. I recall that when I myself quit smoking, I might have gained something like 15-20 pounds of weight, real fast. I have some friends from eastern Europe, and they're skinny as hell, and they also smoke. They're doctors, and whenever I start discussion the effect of smoking on health with them, they tell me they only smoke in the evening, yet the over the top filled ashtrays everywhere in their homes suggest otherwise. Despite some of the bad health/eating habits, the war on smoking is something that Americans are 10-20 years ahead of most Europe, depending on where you live, and that could possibly have some effect on the weight Americans.

    1. Re:.. with smoking? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      +1

    2. Re:.. with smoking? by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      that's an interesting observation. I think that should be examined. Possibly nicotine could be introduced as a supplement.

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    3. Re:.. with smoking? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think that is it. The percentage of people smoking varies widely between countries in Europe, as does the obesity rate and there does not seem to be a direct correlation between the two.

  77. stupidity by foreverdisillusioned · · Score: 1, Insightful

    And while we're doing that... how about raise the standard human IQ to something less obnoxiously pitiful. Because boy oh boy are there are a lot of morons.

    I agree, although unfortunately a good chunk of your post exemplifies this. Corn and "starches" are bad, but fruit is good.... because the fructose in fruit is magically awesome but the fructose in corn is somehow tainted. And everyone knows that white rice is the most fatten of all foods, just ask the 3+ billion asians. Oh, wait.

    There is certainly evidence that carbs were pushed way too hard in the 80s and 90s, but that doesn't mean that everything that comes out of the mouths of neo-Atkins/paleo/anti-corn/anti-gluten/anti-aspartame nutjobs should be believed. At the end of the day, it's about too many calories. While it's possible to alter one's metabolism a bit and/or feel fuller by eating different sorts of foods, any argument re: obesity that doesn't mention calories can be safely ignored as faddish nonsense.

    1. Re:stupidity by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      The asians eat less and exercise more.

      As to fruits, if you talk to body builders they'll explain to you that there is actually a huge difference. No one has more empericial evidence of how food and exercise effects the body than the body building community. True, their objective is to get huge not healthy. But that doesn't mean they don't know what they're talking about.

      Something that they are very big into for example are "all fruit" diets. Not permanently. They shift diets around a lot to break through size barriers. If they stop getting bigger they consult their community and shift what they're doing... and that will work for awhile and then they often have to do something else.

      As to too many calories, that's fine... the type of calories however are also relevant. I don't think I ever implied that we don't eat too much.

      In fact, in my first post I said that we eat too much. So who do you think you're enlightening with that comment? You're preaching to the converted.

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    2. Re:stupidity by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't put too much emphasis on the body-building community. They're aiming at getting their bodies in shape for artificial competition, not staying healthy into old age.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    3. Re:stupidity by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      I specifically stated that:
      "'True, their objective is to get huge not healthy. But that doesn't mean they don't know what they're talking about.""

      So once you understand that I specifically stated that, we can go beyond that to your assertion that because they have different objectives their information is likely useless for your objective. ... I really don't even know where to start with this...

      Son, I am disapoint.
      https://bonsteele.files.wordpr...

      They have extensive empericial experimentation into matters of health, fitness, diet, metabolism, etc.

      Am I suggesting people eat like meatheads? no. I'm suggesting people consider that something learned by one group of people trying to do one thing can be useful for another group of people trying to do something which is actually similar in a lot of respects though of course not fucking identical.

      Both you and the meatheads are trying to control your body's reaction to food, exercise, etc. They've figured out how to turn into muscle monsters. They know how to do that. And as I said... some of them do it with all fruit diets. Literally just sitting there eating pineapples and then beating the hell out of themselves in the gym.

      And they say it is different than just eating bread. So not all carbs are equal.

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
  78. No fucking kidding. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I must live a sheltered oblivious life. I never noticed it had gotten so bad.

    But i went to walmart the other day as they had a specific item i needed asap.
    Went at the worst time i guess. A saturday during the day, place was packed.

    I can not recall seeing so many fat people in one place ever before.
    These were not just a little overweight either. These were land mobile lard monsters.
    And if that wasn't bad enough. they don't seem to have any shame or decency and COVER UP YOUR FAT ROLLS YOU DISGUSTING BLOBS!

    - A "ton of people" is now 5 people.

  79. Re: So what's that in metric? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Illogical. You burn the same number of calories if fat or skinny. But your obease ones, will live a better, longer life. Why? They have access to calories to burn when injured/ill. That gives them a head start on recovery.

  80. Re: So what's that in metric? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some people refuse to see the forest. They only see the bush in front of the forest. The heart is part of a closed loop system. No one can tell how long a closed loop system will work. But there happens to be a firing mechanism for this pump motor. Tell me, what happens if the firing circuit fails? The pump keeps working? Yea, right. Needed pacemaker, right. So which is more important. But what keeps the pacemaker activating? Exercise or what? A nerve stimuli? Tells it to go faster or slower? Now what feeds the nerve?

  81. Maybe because this is a bodybuilding forum... by NEW22 · · Score: 2

    When it comes to online discussions regarding obesity, ~50% of commenters are unfairly evaluated hulking muscular athletic edge cases.

  82. Re:So what's that in metric? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    You're citing a beer competition won by Coors? Hahahahahahaha. Ah, fuck me. I peed my pants a little.

    Or maybe someone spilled Coors on you. It can be hard to tell the difference.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  83. Re: So what's that in metric? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Odell's and New Belgium.

  84. Re:So what's that in metric? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I peed my pants a little.

    You might think about getting some help.

  85. 235 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I personally have gained 235 lbs since 1968, when I was born.

  86. Re:So what's that in metric? by Kjella · · Score: 2

    More like muscles are high upkeep so you have to exercise to keep them, if you just asked a muscular guy to not exercise he wouldn't lose much weight. In fact unless he adjusted his eating habits he'd be a lot more likely to gain weight. And if you reward yourself with junk food and snacks after exercise it won't do you any good at all. There's three very good effects though:

    1) If you're already on a healthy diet it's easier to exercise more than reduce intake even further.
    2) The ratio of muscles to fat is improved, giving you more strength to carry less.
    3) Muscle is denser, even if you're not lighter you'll be slimmer with less flopping around.

    The first one is as simple that the body needs a good fuel mix, it doesn't work well on pure fat. So you have to eat a minimum and if you eat more and exercise you can burn away the fat portion without undernourishing yourself. The second and third basically makes you feel and look better, which is probably just as much the point as the number on a scale.

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  87. Breast Size by tommeke100 · · Score: 1

    It was also noted that the breast size of men is now on average as large as that of women in the 1960s.

  88. It's a man, baby!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeaaaah Baby!!!

  89. Re:So what's that in metric? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And no one in the current Republican party would grant amnesty to illegals. Regan did that too.

  90. crossfit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Good - I'm glad women are getting stronger with more muscle!

  91. Re:So what's that in metric? by Altus · · Score: 1

    Unless he means actual rocks.

    --

    "In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson

  92. Probably sugar by microbox · · Score: 1

    The culprit is probably sugar, although there may be other confounding factors. Whatever the cause, metabolic disorder is going to cost more and more each year if nothing is done about it. Subsidizing the medical consequences of eating lots of refined sugar is perhaps the biggest negative externality in the economy ever.

    --

    Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
  93. Re:So what's that in metric? by kilfarsnar · · Score: 1

    There is no such thing as "good weight". People like Michael Clarke Duncan still die "young" from heart problems. The strain on the heart for pumping blood is related to the mass pumped through, not the percentage of it that's "fat". Arterial constriction/hardening through lipid action is a separate issue, but for general heart failure, and a variety of heart diseases, there's nothing that indicates there's "good" weight, just that any added is harder.

    There is certainly good weight. As with many things, it is a matter of degree. Michael Clarke Duncan was a bit of an extreme case, at 6' 5" and 315 lbs. The thing about muscle weight is that you have to work to get it, as opposed to fat weight where you just have to eat. Building muscle also strengthens the cardiovascular system while eating pie does not. So I would still agree that everyone should do some sort of weight training. You don't have to get huge, just put some muscle on your frame. It strengthens your joints and bones as well.

    Having a decent baseline of strength makes life easier, helps prevent injury and will carry you into old age as a healthier person. You don't need or want to get as big a Dwayne Johnson or whomever. You can't get that big without a huge commitment, and steroids and hormones anyway. What I'm talking about are people like Jack Lalanne. He was strong and fit his whole life and lived well into his 90's. He wasn't a bodybuilder, but he was strong and healthy. He was also an extreme case, but he set an example that people would do well to follow.

    --
    "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
  94. Re:So what's that in metric? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, I'm Dutch and according to recent news *we* are actually (slowly) getting lighter.

  95. Has anyone else noticed...? by TaleSpinner · · Score: 1

    That the more advice the government gives us for health and nutrition, the fatter and unhealthier we get?

    Decades, people. For decades we were told things like "salt causes high blood pressure" - even though that was one study in the 1950's now discredited, yet I still get that advice over and over. "New" research - now years old - shows you need a certain rare gene to have anything like a direct causal relation between salt intake and BP, and most Americans DON'T have it.

    For decades we were told to beware eating saturated fats. Following government guidelines we switched to high-carb diet to avoid these fats. What does recent research show NOW? High saturated fats in blood come from high-carb diets, NOT high protein, even when that protein comes with saturated fats!

    There are now dozens and dozens of examples of this sort of stuff. The real fact of the matter is that the government "guidelines" aren't based on "science," and never were, they were written by lobbiests for various food groups. Black people are far more likely to be lactose-intolerant than whites, yet the government, heavily lobbied by the dairy industry, still features lots of dairy, and no word of warning or advice for an entire population that will certainly have trouble if they heed the gov't's "advice."

    It is certainly arguable at this point whether the government ever uses actual science in its' endeavors. We've all been thoroughly brainwashed about global warming, yet we still set low temperature records in the US and Europe this past winter. We are still being told about the plight of the poor polar bears, even though satellites clearly show more ice coverage at both poles than ever before in the satellite era. The GW alarmists now earnestly explain that this is because of global warming. Warming is proof of global warming. Cooling is proof of global warming. Even if the temperature does nothing it's still proof of global warming! THAT is what passes for "science" when the government just wants an excuse to do something it just plain wants to do - like regulate energy use.

    We are long past the time when we should have begun paring back everything the government should be allowed to do, but instead it has grown like a cancer, sticking it's bureaucratic nose into business it should have no business being in. Michelle Obama should not be deciding what the nation's schoolchildren eat for lunch. She should pick out the White House china and keep her mouth shut, the only Constitutional role the First Lady ever had. And the rest of government should do likewise.

    When the government actually shows competence in doing something, THEN and ONLY then should we think about expanding its' role. But so long as government continues shenanigans like intrusive and unconstitutional nation-wide spying that doesn't stop terrorists, or a bunch of TSA clowns who don't stop terrorists, or a nitwit president who doesn't even think terrorists need to be stopped, America should treat the government like the gigantic, bureaucratic, poorly-managed, travesty that it really is.

    1. Re:Has anyone else noticed...? by nephilimsd · · Score: 1

      It's true that government continues to give advice, and people continue to gain weight, but you know, the whole correlation != causation bit. At the same time that governments are giving advice, private companies have been actors as well. Marketing budgets have increased, quality of ingredients has decreased, farming practices have changed, and world population has gone up. All of these things express correlation, and each may be influential, but when looking for the root cause of a problem, it's better to come with an open mind than a specific agenda.

  96. At the airport by spaceyhackerlady · · Score: 1

    I see this with many of the older light airplanes. Types like the Cessna 150 and Piper Cub were designed when people weighed less, and it's difficult to get two 2015-size people plus a usable fuel load in either. There have been commercial plane crashes due to portly passengers (e.g. Air Midwest 5481).

    I can fly a Cessna 152 solo with full fuel tanks, but if I have anybody in the plane with me I have to calculate how much fuel I can carry without being overweight. I can't do anything meaningful with a 150, and I'm not that heavy.

    ...laura

  97. The two big differences by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sugar in everything, and eating out.

    Back in the day, households were single-income with a full-time homemaker, whose responsibility it was to procure foodstuffs, clean, and handle regular maintenance. There was 1 TV in the home, if at all, one radio, and one telephone that was usually shared among several homes in the neighborhood via a "party line." There were no computers. Kids read books or went outside to play.

    Fast forward to today. In order to support a far more consumerist lifestyle, there is no longer a homemaker. There are two incomes, but one of those incomes is spent paying someone else to maintain the home (i.e. by paying for dinners out, paying for dry cleaning, paying for laundry service, lawn service, etc) so that the co-breadwinners can spend more time playing on computers or going out. Recreational time is spent in front of one of many large TVs in the house, or on a computer or other computing device. Kids play video games and eat junk food. Parents drink and party more, trying to live a younger lifestyle. Personal responsibility is dead.

  98. Yeah... but one detail by whitroth · · Score: 1

    I wish the report would relate it to *height*.

    I mean, height of men going into the US army:
          WWI: 5'6"
          WWII: 5'8"
          Vietnam: 5'10"

    Though I will say that a high percentage of folks *are* a lot heavier than when I was younger.

                            mark

  99. Filling the National Pie Hole. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fewer jobs -> More food stamps -> Higher health care costs -> Higher taxes -> Fewer jobs.

  100. Re:So what's that in metric? by warpuck · · Score: 0

    Been there and added that. At age 38 weight was 225 lbs and 18 % body fat. That does not fit correctly in a BMI chart for 5' 9". 30 years later same weight except my chest and waist sizes have almost swapped positions. I guess I most have chosen my grandparents wisely cuz I have lived beyond the statistical life expectancy the the BMI index reports as 32 with that height and wieght. My uncle Jim was almost the same as I am. .Would he have lived to be 100 instead of 87 if he was 70 lbs lighter ?

  101. Re:So what's that in metric? by ganjadude · · Score: 1

    thats why you get whiskey stones ;)

    --
    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  102. Re: So what's that in metric? by ganjadude · · Score: 1

    I like my whiskey chilled, but i like it to warm as i drink it to get a wider range. I dont use ice but whiskey stones

    --
    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  103. Re: So what's that in metric? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, you're a fattie, then?

  104. Re:So what's that in metric? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    my overall weight drops even though I put on muscle.

    In recovering from an accident, I put on 25 lbs of fat. In getting it off, I replaced 25 lbs of fat with 15 lbs of muscle, and as a result am 15 lbs heavier than I was before and have no excess fat that would be healthy to cut. Granted, I was already in excellent shape, but I didn't expect it to work out like that. </anecdote>

  105. Wow, the stuff that gets modded up on these days by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    I see I touched a nerve though, didn't I? Feel free to go on ignoring the advantages of wealth and the disadvantages of poverty. The rest of us living in the real world will read this comic and keep trying to do something about poverty besides make ourselves feel better about ignoring it.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  106. Re:So what's that in metric? by Dahamma · · Score: 1

    I'm with you. Lagunitas and Rogue are two of my top 5... add Stone, Speakeasy, Firestone, Mendocino, Bear Republic... apparently I can't even pick 5, and those are just my tops on the West Coast, heh.

    Anyway, as you can see I'm not going to argue that the American microbrewery movement doesn't blow away anywhere else in the world. Just that US MACRObreweries are ironically also the worst in the world :)

  107. Re:So what's that in metric? by 3.5+stripes · · Score: 1

    I'd actually pick wines from places like Chile or New Zealand over most of the US ones, but it really depends on what you're looking for in a wine honestly.

    --


    He tried to kill me with a forklift!
  108. Re:So what's that in metric? by 3.5+stripes · · Score: 1

    I like proper job (my local has it on a tilted firkin at the moment) but I think there are more than 15 microbreweries in London; Aspach & Hobday, Gypsy Hill, Cronx, The Kernel, Partizan, Belleville, Weird Beard, Hackney Brewery, Earls, Islington Brewhouse, One Mile End, Bexley, Redchurch, Essex Street Brewing, London Fields, Solvay Society, Southwark Brewing, Bullfinch, Brew By Numbers, Hammerton, Howling Hops, 5 points, Pressure Drop, Signature, Fourpure, Orbit Beers, Camden Town, Strawman, Tap East, East London Brewing, Brick Brewery, Meantime, Brixton, Brockley, Brodies, Beavertown, Canopy Beer Co..

    Ok, I'm tired of typing, but there are about 25+ more.

    --


    He tried to kill me with a forklift!
  109. Invest in Public Transit by MoarSauce123 · · Score: 1

    The solution is to heavily invest in public transit. People will walk more when riding the bus or local train is much better/faster/cheaper/convenient than driving a car. At the same time, start adding sidewalks to streets that are wide enough to be shared between pedestrians and bikes. Further, drop the average work time down from 40 hours to 35 hours and give people more mandatory vacation. That gives them more time to spend on living a healthy life rather than being constantly under stress.

  110. Question: How's it taste "eating your words"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject & answer it vs. you doing it here http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... so keep "puffing that pot" fool!

    * :)

    Gotta love it - seeing you give me guff (yet being a "ne'er-do-well" pothead with nothing better to show for yourself vs. what I've done that gives others more speed, security, reliability, & anonymity), knowing you CRIPPLE your OWN thought processes with pot is priceless, since it makes it (& I've just GOTTA say it, you're making me do it) "too, Too, TOO EASY - just '2ez'" to utterly crush you by making you "eat your words", spiced with the bitter taste of SELF-defeat, + your foot in your mouth RAMMING THEM DOWN, rinsing down the puke you spewed on /. that I smacked you down with easily!

    You didn't seem to throw that "food" away & ATE IT, lol, so those "munchies" got the best of you, along with your BIG MOUTH, dolt.

    APK

    P.S.=> Gotta LOVE pot smoking dolts - they're stupid enough to do what "stoned_ritual" did, & smash themselves into the ground everytime vs. myself, lol... apk

  111. Question: How's it taste "eating your words"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject & answer it vs. you doing it here http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... so keep "puffing that pot" fool!

    * :)

    Gotta love it - seeing you give me guff (yet being a "ne'er-do-well" pothead with nothing better to show for yourself vs. what I've done that gives others more speed, security, reliability, & anonymity), knowing you CRIPPLE your OWN thought processes with pot is priceless, since it makes it (& I've just GOTTA say it, you're making me do it) "too, Too, TOO EASY - just '2ez'" to utterly crush you by making you "eat your words", spiced with the bitter taste of SELF-defeat, + your foot in your mouth RAMMING THEM DOWN, rinsing down the puke you spewed on /. that I smacked you down with easily!

    What a hypocrite you are, incidentally: You speak of gaming here quite often from your post history, pot calling a kettle black - and you CERTAINLY GOT A DOSE OF YOUR OWN MEDICINE in "FOOD" you had to EAT (your words, lol).

    APK

    P.S.=> Gotta LOVE pot smoking dolts - they're stupid enough to do what "stoned_ritual" did, & smash themselves into the ground everytime vs. myself, lol... apk

  112. Re:So what's that in metric? by jwhitener · · Score: 1

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_of_Paris_%28wine%29