I think that it is so surprise that the United States has a weight epidemic on our hands. However, even I was blissfully unaware until I saw the numbers. Data was taken from 188 countries, and it found the highest proportion of overweight and obese people (13% of the global total) live in the United States. Okay, that’s not bad, but it actually is, when you realize that our country only accounts for 5% of the world’s TOTAL population.
I know, those numbers still don’t sound so bad. Let’s look at it this way: it is estimated that 160 million Americans are either overweight or obese. Almost three quarters of American men and more than 60% of American women are in this category. Take a moment and really think about that. This means that if we lined up four men, three of them would be overweight/ obese.
Let’s move past the “overweight” category, and just look at obesity. Just in America there are 78 million obese people, this is more than any other country in the world. China is a distant second with 46 million. One third of American men and women are obese. This is a major health problem. I have to believe that I am not the only one alarmed by these numbers.
I have previously blogged about childhood obesity, so I will leave those numbers alone today.
Contrary to popular belief, this isn’t about people judging others for what they look like. This is about health. These weight issues can cause a variety of health problems included, but not limited to, diabetes, heart issues, and shortened life expectancy.
If people want to continuously call people who talk about the obesity epidemic shallow bullies who are attacking people, then this issue will never be solved. People can be who they want to be, and people can be beautiful at any size. That’s not the issue, the issue is that there is a point where you cannot be healthy at any size.
Let's Get Crackin' 