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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   44988 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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I think you're confusing the cart and the horse. Rising obesity is not a problem in of itself. It's a visible symptom of technology outrunning the self-control, prudentia, and conscientiousness of the population — or of technology hurting those, directly. People looking like orbs out of WALL-E doesn't prevent an advanced technological society. It only causes retired pensioners with obsolete skillsets to die earlier.

Obesity is an interesting subject. I think a distinction needs to be made between childhood/teen obesity and adult obesity. People tend to gain weight as they get older, at around 1-2 pound /year, up until around 60. I think looking at childhood/teen obesity gives a more accurate perspective of the situation. Childhood obesity is particularly bad because the complications later in life are perhaps worse.

People tend to gain weight as they get older, at around 1-2 pound /year, up until around 60.

Closer to 1 pound/year on average, IIRC. Not that that's not bad enough.

Though, I'd love to know for sure whether "tend" in this sentence is a law of nature or just another modern abnormality. One of the most astonishing claims from that Slime Mold Time Mold series was:

Common wisdom today tells us that we get heavier as we get older. But historically, this wasn’t true. In the past, most people got slightly leaner as they got older. Those Civil War veterans we mentioned above had an average BMI of 23.2 in their 40s and 22.9 in their 60’s. In their 40’s, 3.7% were obese, compared to 2.9% in their 60s. We see the same pattern in data from 1976-1980: people in their 60s had slightly lower BMIs and were slightly less likely to be obese than people in their 40s (See the table below). It isn’t until the 1980s that we start to see this trend reverse.

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