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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.
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.
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
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...
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.
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.
Learn to love Alaska
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.