7 ms·

As an Indian in the states - my observation was that obesity in the US seems like a class issue. Most well-off folks are fit and working out is woven into their

by ameen 5y ago

As an Indian in the states - my observation was that obesity in the US seems like a class issue. Most well-off folks are fit and working out is woven into their lifestyles. Others can't as they're probably working 2-3 jobs to make ends meet.

birksherty 5y ago
It's not work out or time but diet that makes people obese. They probably eat fast food, sugary drinks, packaged food a lot everyday instead of unprocessed food like meat, veg, fruits, nuts. Edit: Poor people in India are thin and rich are fat, quite opposite, again due to diet. Indian poor can't afford fast food in chain restaurants daily, must cook which is cheaper.
- ajuc 5y ago
  Wealth is relative. Yes you can be so poor that you can't afford enough calories to become obese. It's rare in the developed world. But you can also be so poor that you can afford calories, alcohol and little more as an entertainment. It's easy to get obese then.
  - ido 5y ago
    Keep in mind that unlike in Europe in the US processed food is often cheaper than fresh vegetables, fruits and meats. I always thought the US would be "cheap" in terms of consumer prices compared to western europe but it was significantly more expensive to buy fresh produce in US supermarkets than in Germany or Austria. On the other hand stuff like coca cola is cheaper.
    - taurath 5y ago
      $1 “any size” soda at McDonald’s up to 40oz where I live, with free refills. Most everyone I know spent a good amount of their teen and early adulthoods surviving off of cheap food - fast food is incredibly convenient and as cheap as a healthy “struggle” meal of staples without a long time in a kitchen which you may not really have.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- Broken_Hippo 5y ago
  Meat, veg, fruits and nuts are expensive - and they go bad. You simply can't always afford them and sometimes you can't actually buy fresh stuff. You see, a fair amount of poor folks get paid once a month, and since there aren't a lot of little grocery stores nearby, folks wind up buying food once and hoping it lasts the month. Poor folks don't always have steady electricity nor a refrigeration, either: Living without a fridge makes your diet go to crap pretty quickly. Time is another luxury poor folks have issues with, which also makes diets go awry.
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
    While there are clear differences between obesity rates between rich and poor in the US, basically everything you've put up is personal speculation: > Poor folks don't always have steady electricity nor a refrigeration, either: Living without a fridge makes your diet go to crap pretty quickly. Differences between access to steady refrigeration is extremely slim for people in the US for all but the poorest of the poor (basically homeless) > Time is another luxury poor folks have issues with, which also makes diets go awry. In the US poor people have more free time, on average, than wealthy people: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/the-free-time-paradox-in-america/499826/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/the-fre... There are other studies that suggest the causality is the opposite: obese people are more likely to become poor: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5781054/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5781054/ That study is definitely not broadly convincing in my opinion, but just want to point out that there is a ton of baseless speculation in this thread trying to explain the obesity/wealth relationship.
    - JohnWhigham 5y ago
      At some point, it's the obvious that no one is stating: the American style of life makes a lot of people lazy as fuck, and they just don't give a fuck about working on their waistlines.
novok 5y ago
Another thing is india tends to be one of the fatter poor states due to its diet. If you came from east or south east asia, americans would seem fatter to you even if your in a fitter place. Same with many europeans.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  (As an American) I used to think we had too much sugar in our culture, then a couple of friends extolled the virtue of and convinced me to try gulab jamun...
medvezhenok 5y ago
Indeed - the U.S. has some of the most extreme health differences between the top end and bottom end of the income spectrum (roughly correlated to class). At the top end, the outcomes (and health measures) are better than anywhere in the world, while at the bottom end they are below most first-world nations: http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/health/ http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/health/
- dan-robertson 5y ago
  For an apples-to-apples comparison, one must look at the corresponding distributions in other developed countries. It could be that the poorest people live significantly shorter lives in other countries but that the middle do better than in the states.
  - medvezhenok 5y ago
    If you have any data about similar distributions for other countries (life expectancy by income) I would be very interested - I have not managed to find similar.
fellellor 5y ago
Are there no wealthy people, over there, who just don’t want to work out?
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  There are, but it is seen as a moral failing or lack of discipline in the circles I am familiar with (on the coasts).
- jlawson 5y ago
  Not being obese has basically nothing to do with "working out". It's all about diet. Nobody worked out before 1960 and nobody was fat (and lots of people were poor). Nobody in India is fat and nobody work out and they're largely poor. To your question - Lots of them. I'm (relatively) wealthy and I don't want to diet. But I do it anyway because it's worth the short-term suffering for the long-term gain. It's a super obvious good mid and long term investment with a great RoR. Parent commenter had the causality reversed. Being poor doesn't make you fat; high time preference makes you both poor and fat. i.e. Someone poor with low time preference won't stay poor for long. The kind of person who stays poor in America for years and years is generally the kind who also has too high time preference to stop eating a full bag of chips every day.
  - watwut 5y ago
    This is not really true. The amount of physical activity you do absolutely influences both your shape and your health. Also, we do have more sedentary lifestyles then typical 1960 person. Just in terms of how much you walk during the day, we are already not moving.
    - Paul_S 5y ago
      You have moved the goal posts. Exercise has a positive effect on health, yes. It does not have an effect on whether you're fat. That is down to food intake. That is what the poster was actually saying.
      - 5y ago
dkarl 5y ago
It's not time (very few people who exercise regularly do so to an extent that would undo significant overweight) but more likely a combination of chronic stress and a cultural norm among their family and friends. For younger and more educated people, it's a strong cultural norm to be at a healthy weight, so even people for whom it doesn't come naturally have a very strong social incentive, and they are surrounded by cultural norms that support them. For people in other classes who find it difficult to stay lean, there's much less cultural support (serving sizes, "normal" foods, etc.) and also less social downside to giving up and allowing their weight to drift up.

by ameen 5y ago

birksherty 5y ago

It's not work out or time but diet that makes people obese. They probably eat fast food, sugary drinks, packaged food a lot everyday instead of unprocessed food like meat, veg, fruits, nuts. Edit: Poor people in India are thin and rich are fat, quite opposite, again due to diet. Indian poor can't afford fast food in chain restaurants daily, must cook which is cheaper.

ajuc 5y ago
Wealth is relative. Yes you can be so poor that you can't afford enough calories to become obese. It's rare in the developed world. But you can also be so poor that you can afford calories, alcohol and little more as an entertainment. It's easy to get obese then.
- ido 5y ago
  Keep in mind that unlike in Europe in the US processed food is often cheaper than fresh vegetables, fruits and meats. I always thought the US would be "cheap" in terms of consumer prices compared to western europe but it was significantly more expensive to buy fresh produce in US supermarkets than in Germany or Austria. On the other hand stuff like coca cola is cheaper.
  - taurath 5y ago
    $1 “any size” soda at McDonald’s up to 40oz where I live, with free refills. Most everyone I know spent a good amount of their teen and early adulthoods surviving off of cheap food - fast food is incredibly convenient and as cheap as a healthy “struggle” meal of staples without a long time in a kitchen which you may not really have.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Broken_Hippo 5y ago
Meat, veg, fruits and nuts are expensive - and they go bad. You simply can't always afford them and sometimes you can't actually buy fresh stuff. You see, a fair amount of poor folks get paid once a month, and since there aren't a lot of little grocery stores nearby, folks wind up buying food once and hoping it lasts the month. Poor folks don't always have steady electricity nor a refrigeration, either: Living without a fridge makes your diet go to crap pretty quickly. Time is another luxury poor folks have issues with, which also makes diets go awry.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  While there are clear differences between obesity rates between rich and poor in the US, basically everything you've put up is personal speculation: > Poor folks don't always have steady electricity nor a refrigeration, either: Living without a fridge makes your diet go to crap pretty quickly. Differences between access to steady refrigeration is extremely slim for people in the US for all but the poorest of the poor (basically homeless) > Time is another luxury poor folks have issues with, which also makes diets go awry. In the US poor people have more free time, on average, than wealthy people: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/the-free-time-paradox-in-america/499826/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/the-fre... There are other studies that suggest the causality is the opposite: obese people are more likely to become poor: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5781054/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5781054/ That study is definitely not broadly convincing in my opinion, but just want to point out that there is a ton of baseless speculation in this thread trying to explain the obesity/wealth relationship.
  - JohnWhigham 5y ago
    At some point, it's the obvious that no one is stating: the American style of life makes a lot of people lazy as fuck, and they just don't give a fuck about working on their waistlines.

novok 5y ago

Another thing is india tends to be one of the fatter poor states due to its diet. If you came from east or south east asia, americans would seem fatter to you even if your in a fitter place. Same with many europeans.

ethbr0 5y ago
(As an American) I used to think we had too much sugar in our culture, then a couple of friends extolled the virtue of and convinced me to try gulab jamun...

medvezhenok 5y ago

Indeed - the U.S. has some of the most extreme health differences between the top end and bottom end of the income spectrum (roughly correlated to class). At the top end, the outcomes (and health measures) are better than anywhere in the world, while at the bottom end they are below most first-world nations: http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/health/ http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/health/

dan-robertson 5y ago
For an apples-to-apples comparison, one must look at the corresponding distributions in other developed countries. It could be that the poorest people live significantly shorter lives in other countries but that the middle do better than in the states.
- medvezhenok 5y ago
  If you have any data about similar distributions for other countries (life expectancy by income) I would be very interested - I have not managed to find similar.

fellellor 5y ago

Are there no wealthy people, over there, who just don’t want to work out?

lotsofpulp 5y ago
There are, but it is seen as a moral failing or lack of discipline in the circles I am familiar with (on the coasts).
jlawson 5y ago
Not being obese has basically nothing to do with "working out". It's all about diet. Nobody worked out before 1960 and nobody was fat (and lots of people were poor). Nobody in India is fat and nobody work out and they're largely poor. To your question - Lots of them. I'm (relatively) wealthy and I don't want to diet. But I do it anyway because it's worth the short-term suffering for the long-term gain. It's a super obvious good mid and long term investment with a great RoR. Parent commenter had the causality reversed. Being poor doesn't make you fat; high time preference makes you both poor and fat. i.e. Someone poor with low time preference won't stay poor for long. The kind of person who stays poor in America for years and years is generally the kind who also has too high time preference to stop eating a full bag of chips every day.
- watwut 5y ago
  This is not really true. The amount of physical activity you do absolutely influences both your shape and your health. Also, we do have more sedentary lifestyles then typical 1960 person. Just in terms of how much you walk during the day, we are already not moving.
  - Paul_S 5y ago
    You have moved the goal posts. Exercise has a positive effect on health, yes. It does not have an effect on whether you're fat. That is down to food intake. That is what the poster was actually saying.
    - 5y ago

dkarl 5y ago

It's not time (very few people who exercise regularly do so to an extent that would undo significant overweight) but more likely a combination of chronic stress and a cultural norm among their family and friends. For younger and more educated people, it's a strong cultural norm to be at a healthy weight, so even people for whom it doesn't come naturally have a very strong social incentive, and they are surrounded by cultural norms that support them. For people in other classes who find it difficult to stay lean, there's much less cultural support (serving sizes, "normal" foods, etc.) and also less social downside to giving up and allowing their weight to drift up.