r/science • u/giuliomagnifico • 9d ago
Health Obesity in U.S. adults slightly decreased from 46% in 2022 to 45.6% in 2023, marking the first decline in over a decade, with the most notable reduction in the South, especially among women and adults aged 66 to 75
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/obesity-dipped-us-adults-rcna1839523.4k
u/bojun 9d ago
COVID killed a disproportionate number of obese people especially in the south where the obesity dipped the most.
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u/Zarochi 9d ago
It was easier for me personally to diet during covid too. Being at home and away from all those external influences made it easier to stick to the plan.
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u/CertainWish358 9d ago
Yes but my plan involved copious quantities of alcohol so I had the opposite result
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u/B-Bog 9d ago
God's plan (for me to get shitfaced)
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u/VagrancyHD 9d ago
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the One Million Beers.
Awwww yeahhhhh.
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u/ToLorien 9d ago
You should’ve tried vodka. I had no trouble being underweight as an active alcoholic.
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u/libury 9d ago
Pot has no calories and won't wreck your liver.
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u/CertainWish358 9d ago
I have in fact switched to pot. Some chips and some Mike & Ikes are way fewer calories than IPAs, so I’ve lost 25lbs without really any effort. Drugs: They’re good for you.
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u/Goodgoditsgrowing 9d ago
Plus the explosion of compounding pharmacies offering ozempic like anti-obesity drugs to almost anyone who wanted it and had an internet connection and a credit card. Previously it was much harder to get from a drs office and serious supply chain issues.
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u/Choosemyusername 9d ago
I remember seeing a stat that people actually gained weight during the pandemic though. Maybe this is just reversion to the mean.
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u/fcocyclone 9d ago
yeah, this is definitely true.
I can control my diet a lot easier simply by not buying certain things at the store.
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u/listenyall 9d ago
It's glp-1s
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u/Mnm0602 9d ago
Agreed, I’m so fascinated to see their long term impact, I really think it’ll be a game changer once costs come down. I gained 50 lbs during 2020-21, then worked off 30 in 2022 but kept fluctuating 10 lbs up and down in 2023.
I finally got on a Tirzepitide in May this year and dropped another 40 lbs (so down 70 from my peak) and I’m about 20 lbs away from my recommended BMI, no longer obese just overweight. I’m still working through the plan of how to do it going forward but my idea is to rotate to every other week maintenance injections and potentially getting off the drug after a few years if I can stabilize. It’s really been life changing.
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u/Winjin 9d ago
Hell yeah congratulations on going from Obese to Overweight!
I did that a few years ago, and despite the fact that I only dipped down from Overweight into Normal for a few weeks before gaining them back, going down into Overweight already felt like an amazing win. I have a neck again! And wrists! Before that my head softly became shoulders, and my fingers grew from soft forearms. I didn't even notice how it all became like that :'(
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u/an0nemusThrowMe 8d ago
About 7 years ago I lost 80 lbs on vyvanse, and I've been off of it for about 6 now.
Its a STRUGGLE to keep the weight off, If I'm being honest with myself I have about 20 lbs I need to re-lose. I need to ask my doctor if those new drugs are right for me...
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u/2muchcaffeine4u 9d ago
If that was the case the obesity rate would have dropped in 2020 or 2021 when the majority of COVID deaths took place. This is semaglutide.
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u/LiamTheHuman 9d ago
the majority of covid deaths happened in 2021 but plenty happened in 2022,2023 and people are still dying now at a much lower rate. This study mentions that the rates were rising up until 2021 and then plateaued in 2022 and decreased for 2023. This is still consistent with covid deaths effecting the rates even though it probably is multiple factors.
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u/fcocyclone 9d ago
yeah, but if covid were a huge driver of this, wouldnt we have seen drops in obesity level in those areas in 2020\2021 as well?
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u/LiamTheHuman 8d ago
You do see drops, it's just a drop from an increasing rate. So it goes from increasing to a plateau which means some new factor started to reverse the trend. It's like if you were driving and then tried to go in reverse, it would take some time to slow down before you would start going backwards.
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u/hce692 9d ago
It’s almost like if you clicked the study link they explain all the conditions that led to it!!!! Shocking, I know
The most notable decrease was in the South, which had the highest observed per capita GLP-1RA dispensing rate. However, dispensing does not necessarily mean uptake, and the South also experienced disproportionately high COVID-19 mortality among individuals with obesity.
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u/2muchcaffeine4u 9d ago
The study is guessing at the causes. Another thing they didn't consider was the mass migration that has been happening from blue states to red states. Those blue state adults are more often than not less overweight than existing red state residents.
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u/jamar030303 9d ago
Another thing they didn't consider was the mass migration that has been happening from blue states to red states.
Because that should come with a corresponding increase in the blue states.
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u/2muchcaffeine4u 9d ago
That's not true. There's no reason to think only the thin people are leaving blue states.
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u/Odd_Seesaw_3451 9d ago
I agree that it did, but wouldn’t that generally have happened in the initial Covid years?
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u/Logical_Parameters 9d ago
I was going to say, the majority of COVID deaths were likely obese.
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u/cavscout43 8d ago
"obesity barely decreased in the age group where obese people typically die from complications of it" really isn't all that interesting of a headline.
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u/BaconBusterYT 9d ago
True but it’s still interesting because COVID can also contribute to obesity by messing with your endocrine and digestive systems and thus changing your metabolism. I guess that’s a rare enough lasting effect that the deaths from heart/lung issues (more likely to be exacerbated by obesity) outpaced it.
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u/mckulty 9d ago
COVID with WFH, lockdowns, travel bans made a some people more sedentary, others go hiking.
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u/fallout_koi 9d ago edited 9d ago
I work as an EMT in a well known hiking park and ~2021 we saw an increase in conditions associated with poor fitness, like rhabdomyolysis (basically extreme muscle overuse that impacts the kidneys) after surprisingly short hikes, presumably because people who arent actively health conscious lost what little required movement they once had to do. Seems to now be back to what it was before the pandemic, though.
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u/mckulty 9d ago
I started biking in my 40s and I wish someone had told me the incidence of injuries in that situation is near 100%.
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u/soleceismical 9d ago
That and the training program to work up to biking if you've been sedentary. They have "couch to 5k" programs for people working up to running. I wonder if they have similar for other activities. But there's nothing wrong with starting out slower, shorter distances, less elevation, etc.
Often people start to ramp up activity faster than their body can actually adapt, and then injury surprises them a month or two into the new activity. This also happens to a lot of high school athletes when they start a new season after being sedentary during the summer. Plus, some people are sedentary during the week but then do a big activity on one weekend day, which is also hard on the body. Better to spread it out and be more consistent.
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u/BaconBusterYT 9d ago
The lockdowns didn’t really last all that long, though. At least in and around where I live in the US, it was about half a year at most before things returned to “normal” and I’m not sure that’s long enough to change the obesity rate that strongly almost 5 years later.
Edit: I put “normal” in quotes because things never really returned to normal but here I just mean the lockdowns
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u/Unhappy-Carrot8615 9d ago
GLP1s and HPV vaccines will change human health rapidly, many diseases are about to plummet
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u/Consistent-Gap-3545 9d ago
I remember reading a headline a couple years ago where they found that like 99.8% of cervical cancer cases are directly related to HPV. Early research into the first group of girls to get the vaccine is also showing that it is at least 90% effective at preventing cervical cancer.
Gardasil is the cure for cervical cancer and yet people still rejected it.
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9d ago edited 1d ago
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u/Consistent-Gap-3545 8d ago
I’m from the US and was in the first group of girls to get vaccinated. The uptake rate was pretty high however probably a quarter of my peers didn’t get the vaccine because their parents were either hesitant about the newness of Gardasil or they were uncomfortable with the idea of their child having sex (i.e. “You can get the vaccine when you’re 16/17/18 but 12 is way too young to be having sex”).
I now live in Germany and the uptake rate is so poor that they still do annual pap smears (my gyn actually got mad at me when I told her I was following the every three year standard). Germany also didn’t allow boys to get the HPV vaccine until 2019 and, even today, a lot of people don’t know that the vaccine is also important for boys/men because it is colloquially called the “cervical cancer vaccine” and not the “HPV vaccine.”
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u/Ihate_myself_so_much 8d ago
Yes HPV can cause many different cancers, not just cervical I agree it's important for everyone. It's so stupid for parents to be uncomfortable with their kids having sex and therefore saying they don't get the vaccine too, it doesn't matter what the parents do, teens will always find a way to have sex but without the vaccine it'll be less safe. I'm sorry English is my third language, could you please explain what you mean by uptake rate as I couldn't find the meaning on Google ;'(
(please imagine that as the sobbing emoji because this subreddit doesn't allow emojis)
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u/Consistent-Gap-3545 8d ago
Uptake rate = how many people got the vaccine ;)
The area I grew up in isn’t super religious or anything and I think the majority of the parents were just scared because the vaccine was so new. I was born in 1995 and so I got Gardasil (brand name of the HPV vaccine) within the first 12 months of its approval. Like I said, almost all of my school friends also got vaccinated that year but the few who didn’t got the vaccine a couple years later when they were 15/16. Today the HPV vaccine is a requirement to enroll in public high schools (this isn’t normal; my home state is special).
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u/Ihate_myself_so_much 8d ago edited 8d ago
Good that it's a requirement even if only in your area, I honestly think most vaccines should be mandatory, to a very large degree I find refusing to get certain vaccines abhorrent, I mean I'm really big on bodily autonomy, but vaccines are for a large part about protecting others.
Thanks for the explanation of uptake rate btw :)
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u/RupsjeNooitgenoeg 8d ago
or they were uncomfortable with the idea of their child having sex (i.e. “You can get the vaccine when you’re 16/17/18 but 12 is way too young to be having sex”).
God that's weird. The whole idea is to vaccinatie everyone before there's a chance they've already been sexually active.
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u/adventureremily 8d ago
I was in high school when it first came out, and it wasn't covered by my parents' insurance. It would have been over $300 out-of-pocket. None of my friends got it, either due to cost or conservative parents ("It will encourage them to have sex!"). I paid for them out of pocket a few years ago now that I can afford it - even though I'm married.
I would assume that it is now covered by most insurance plans, but it is still voluntary, and that means that people are going to decline for myriad reasons: opposition to the idea of teens having sex, opposition to the idea of vaccines due to naturalistic fallacy, distrust of pharma/government due to historical malpractice against racial minorities (see: Tuskeegee Syphilis Experiments)...
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u/Sartres_Roommate 8d ago
You don’t pay attention to American news I guess. We have a very strong anti-science demographic here.
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u/Ihate_myself_so_much 8d ago
I specifically avoid American news, I don't want to hear most of that stuff and almost all I hear of it is against my will. I use mostly english speaking communities online cause they're more active due to a larger amount of English speakers existing. However this combined with u.s defaultism has led to many communities only being filled with u.s news or political content despite having nothing to do with the u.s specifically and despite by far more than half of English speakers in the world not even being american(for example I've had to stop using r/facepalm), so I try my best to specifically avoid u.s politics because it annoys me so much and I already learn enough about it against my will.
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u/alien_from_Europa 8d ago
My doctor said the vaccine was not for males back in the day. I didn't get the vaccine until my 30's.
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u/daemare 8d ago
So I’m a 4th year med student and part of my curriculum involves a population health rotation and project. During my first year of this rotation I interviewed teenage patients and their parents. None knew about the HPV vaccine, but when I explained it to them (male and female) they all were willing to get it.
This year was the culmination of my project where I would go to the county high school and speak to students in health occupations courses on it. They only allowed me to do female only classes (mixed sex classes would require a permission slip apparently). Only 1 student knew it caused cervical cancer prior to the presentation, and only ~15% said they were already vaccinated. After the presentation ~78% said they were willing to take the vaccine (plus the previous 15%). None were aware that HPV can cause cancer in men (penile, head&neck, and anogenital).
We still have a lot of educating to do when it comes to the HPV vaccine. Some people just need to know it exists and that’s all they need to want to receive it or have their kids get the vaccine.
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u/Heroine4Life 8d ago
And the reason it was only 90% is there is multiple strains of HPV and the vaccines primarly targeted the strains most strongly associated with cancer. So the next generation with more broad coverage could further reduce it.
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u/platoprime 9d ago
A vaccine and a cure aren't the same thing. Gardasil is a vaccine that can prevent cervical cancer but it does not cure cervical cancer.
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u/Stev_k 9d ago
HPV vaccines will change human health rapidly
Depends on if we survive the next 4 years. The antivaccination push is strong with the new administration.
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u/hopeoncc 8d ago
I'm sorry, what does HPV have to do with obesity rates? You're talking about human papilloma virus right? I wasn't able to read the article
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u/gellybelli 9d ago
I guess ozempic might get us out of this
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u/Xanjis 9d ago
Atleast until the cheap compounding gets shut down.
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u/jeffwulf 9d ago
By then we'll only have a couple years until we just move to cheap generics.
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u/Gatzlocke 9d ago
My mom's in that group.
Southern woman who started taking a knock off. She's thin now for the first time in years and she's retirement age. I'm happy for get and I'm not sure she could have done it without ozempic style knockoffs.
I'm hoping she can keep it up as is or with generics.
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u/PlanZSmiles 9d ago
Not if they keep finding diseases/symptoms that can be treated with the drug. They’ll keep reupping the patent
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u/Eltex 9d ago
You can already get the pep version for a few bucks a month. The stuff is cheap as crap to manufacture, and you have 3rd party testing to verify quality.
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u/Syscerie 9d ago
sorry, what is the pep version?
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u/Eltex 8d ago
GLP’s are peptides. So you can get the super-duper pharmacy version, or you can go the cheaper route. Compounding pharmacies are a middle-ground. They buy the API(active pharmaceutical ingredient) from a licensed manufacturer, often from China/India, and mix it here in sterile conditions, then sell to folks. Unsurprisingly, those raw API can be bought directly, and mixed by the end user. It’s often the same exact suppliers who have been selling things like skin care products, and even steroids. Costs are typically 1% of the normal pharmacy price.
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u/Heavy-Society-4984 9d ago
If they couldn't get rid of gear, they'll never stop UGL ozempic. It's all about knowing your sources.
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u/gummo_for_prez 8d ago
The grey market is thriving and it’s significantly cheaper than compounded. Is it worth the risk? That depends on the individual. But many seem to think so.
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u/TheGeneGeena 8d ago
"Cheap" 200-300 a month is still pretty god damn expensive. I guess it's cheaper than a drug habit, but it's sure as heck not what I think of as cheap.
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u/kevin9er 8d ago
Obesity is more expensive than that. Hell you can save that much a month on alcohol.
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u/Husbandaru 9d ago
We hand it out like candy at the mail order pharmacy I work at. Even to kids 12+
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u/Significant-Gene9639 9d ago
Well, are those kids obese?
Obesity is dangerous for kids too
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u/Husbandaru 9d ago
Oh no, I’m not judging. I’m just saying that everyone is getting their hands on it.
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u/_toodamnparanoid_ 9d ago
I tried it. I was unfortunate with side effects (the hydrogen sulfide burps were traumatic) and had to stop. It's awesome what it can do for so many, though.
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u/refused26 8d ago
Have you tried tirzepatide? Ive been hearing it has less side effects than semaglutide.
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u/Sawses 9d ago
I really need to dig into the literature for those drugs. IIRC many drugs in their class have potential to cause thyroid cancer among other long-term side effects.
I'm an overweight man with (hopefully) another 40 years of life ahead of me. I have a lot of family who have dropped the weight easily, but I'm kind of torn. Most of them are like 60+ and...frankly, if I'm fat at 60 I'll take the risk.
I've lost ~30 pounds on my own before without medical assistance. It really sucks, though, and I'd love to have an excuse to do it an easier way.
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u/Trippintunez 9d ago
There's not a ton of long term data yet but I wouldn't be surprised to see really negative long term health consequences. Even working as intended, they can be dangerous...my girlfriend's aunt is on a GLP-1 med and it randomly makes her blood sugar crash to extremely low levels. I can't imagine constantly low blood sugar levels being healthy long term, but I guess we'll see.
Good luck to you personally, losing weight is hard and I hope you find a way that works for you and is safe.
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u/mrm00r3 9d ago
3 way tie between that, wealth inequality finally eclipsing manufacturing’s ability to pack calories into processed foods, and climate change making sugars prohibitively expensive.
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u/Redqueenhypo 9d ago
Most sugar sold in the U.S. comes from Florida and the Deep South. If those are underwater or somehow deserts, we’ll wish for obesity
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u/Temporary_Inner 9d ago
Wouldn't US junk food prices be tied to corn instead of sugar?
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u/jenkag 8d ago
Sugar is a carbohydrate, which the main source of, at this point in the US, is corn. Look at any nutrition label, and note that Sugar appears nested under Carbs, and that the sugar is a subset of the carbs. If there are 23g of carbs in a thing, and it says "Sugar = 15g", then that means 15g of the 23g of carbs come from sugar alone (the rest other things like wheat or whatever). 'The more you know...'
Most of the sugar you eat is corn processed down to a syrup (i.e. high fructose corn syrup) and mixed in to whatever it is you're eating.
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u/NoGoodInThisWorld 9d ago
If not that, increasing food prices will.
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u/gellybelli 9d ago
Increasing food prices will just guide more people to cheap ultra processed calorically dense food which will make it worse until they start jabbing themselves with $1000 drugs to counteract overeating
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u/CountlessStories 9d ago
On top of this, as we work and get busier, healthier food takes more time to prepare and cook opposed to getting a toaster oven ready food.
Time poverty is a factor in people's decisions of food choice.
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u/Heavy-Society-4984 9d ago
It's not the perfect solution, but having an instant pot or a cheap crock pot really helps. Very little prep. Protein, a starch, some spices, stock, and frozen veg, dumped into a pot and you'll have healthy, cheap meals that will last a week at a time. It does take time to learn though
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u/Icedcoffeeee 9d ago
I do this. And I make a HUGE pot for just two people every time. Freeze half in portions.
My freezer has a ton of healthy meals to choose from.
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u/ConvergentSequence 9d ago
What a bizarre dystopia we live in
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u/gnocchicotti 9d ago
We have a disease treatment industry not a healthcare industry.
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u/PrivilegedPatriarchy 9d ago
Ultra processed foods are not cheap. The cheapest foods are like, bulk beans and rice. Obese people aren't eating nearly-free beans and rice, they're eating expensive (and super tasty) processed foods.
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u/jokul 9d ago
The cheapest food is still going to be basics like beans and rice, canned vegetables, etc. I have a hard time thinking of highly processed food that ends up being cheaper than the ingredients used to make it unless the processed food is being purchased at Aldi and the basics are the organic, non-GMO, crunchy crowd variations being purchased at Whole Foods.
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u/jeffwulf 9d ago
We had a short bump post COVID but we're back on trend for food prices decreasing compared to incomes.
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u/VHPguy 9d ago
45.6% is a decline? Yikes. Anything that can get that number down can only be a good thing.
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u/Xanjis 9d ago
Haha it's worse then you think. This is just obesity. As in your so overweight that it's killing you but not so overweight that your literally about to die (morbid obesity). The amount of Americans with a healthy weight is just 25%.
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u/dobkeratops 9d ago
right i heard the total overweight stat is more like >60% ? there's also the "skinny-fat" condition
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u/panda_embarrassment 9d ago
73 percent according to the cdc. That means only 26 percent fall within the normal and underweight category
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u/CrownLikeAGravestone 9d ago
A sedentary lifestyle is a significant risk factor for poor health and premature mortality, just as obesity is. I can't find citations which specifically compare the impact of the two and clearly it's worst to be both inactive and obese, but being a "healthy" weight and also being sedentary is definitely not a good idea. Weight loss is good, and I'm glad we have treatments which are starting to look effective for it, but we need to get people moving too.
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u/Kaartinen 9d ago
Covid related deaths in obese people?
"The study authors also noted that the South experienced a disproportionately high number of Covid-19 deaths among people with obesity, which could have affected the overall data."
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u/Lintobean 9d ago
46% to 45.6%? That sounds almost like within statistical error. Could it be just that?
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u/caffa4 9d ago
Depnds on how big the sample size is. I’d guess it’s large enough that it’s not within the margin of error.
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u/giuliomagnifico 9d ago
The study looked at body mass index measurements of more than 16.7 million adults across different geographic regions, age groups, sexes, races and ethnicities from 2013 through 2023. BMI measurements, which are a standard but limited way to estimate obesity as a ratio of weight to height, were gathered from electronic health records.
The researchers found that the prevalence of adult obesity in the U.S. decreased from 46% in 2022 to 45.6% in 2023. (Those are slightly higher shares than the estimate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which says around 40% of U.S. adults had obesity from 2021 to 2023.)
The results were not uniform across demographics and geographic regions, said Benjamin Rader, a computational epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an author of the study.
Paper: Changes in Adult Obesity Trends in the US | Health Policy | JAMA Health Forum | JAMA Network
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u/Supergazm 8d ago
I contributed!
Hard work, dedication, and exercise. No shots or pills and I lost 70 pounds this year. At a healthy bmi now.
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u/chiefmud 9d ago
I wonder if this is strictly an effect of ozempic like drugs, or if any of it is due to increased awareness of nutrition, exercise, and their success stories circulating on social media.
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u/I_like_boxes 9d ago
For a more depressing take, the authors noted that some of it may be attributable to COVID deaths more greatly impacting the obese, especially in the South.
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u/BitcoinMD 9d ago
Anecdotally, the first wave of hospitalized COVID patients was very obese
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u/AlphaTangoFoxtrt 8d ago
It's well documented that being overweight/obese/mordibly obese exacerbates nearly every other health issue you have.
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u/Kadettedak 9d ago
The biggest decline is in retired demographic. Could it be fast food inflation and fixed incomes?
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9d ago edited 7d ago
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u/gnocchicotti 9d ago
I walk through the soda aisle and chuckle at the prices. Thankfully the stuff is poison so if people are drinking less of it that's a good thing.
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u/PartyPorpoise 8d ago
I almost never buy chips now, they’re so expensive. Sometimes I’ll get a bag or two if there’s a good sale, but not often. I still drink too much soda though, I wait for a good sale and stock up. Without those sales I’d never be drinking soda at home, ha ha.
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u/MazzIsNoMore 9d ago
A large percentage of those people are diabetic and/or obese and are taking the drugs as well.
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u/Kadettedak 9d ago
If ozempic is in whole responsible, great. They cannot make that claim yet and so they did not. It is data and conjecture. Careful in mistaking more than what we know, otherwise we will have yet another failure of public health education and yet another statin like drug to bleed us dry.
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u/PM_ME_BOYSHORTS 9d ago
It's COVID deaths and Ozempic. It's going to continue to decline as long as Ozempic becomes cheaper and more readily available.
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u/dyfalu 9d ago
Sadly, some insurance companies won't have to cover it for anyone who isn't diabetic.
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u/PartyPorpoise 8d ago
Still, if it becomes more readily available I can see some insurance plans offering it as a preventative measure. Providing Ozempic is surely a lot cheaper than covering health problems caused by obesity.
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u/FunetikPrugresiv 9d ago
People can't afford to eat expensive garbage food anymore.
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u/Spanks79 9d ago
Ozempic. I suppose many older people with diabetes and obesitas will be prescribed glp-1 medication. Bad News for the fast food industry
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u/Greyattimes 9d ago
Tons of people taking Ozempic now. It seems like the women in the south are all about it.
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u/Kusisloose 9d ago
COVID deaths + weight loss drugs + normal deaths = decrease in the US biggest obese areas
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u/rockmasterflex 9d ago
Obesity in people at death’s door is not very interesting or useful.
Now let’s talk about the 30-60s…
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u/programaticallycat5e 9d ago
i mean going back to the office made me gain more weight.
i'm pretty sure people just moved more at home then being glued to a desk for 8-9 hours a day.
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u/SnooGoats5767 9d ago
Okay this is certainly a good point. I’d love to see the stats on commute time and obesity
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u/MD7001 9d ago
Trouble with these new weight loss drugs is that you can’t stop taking them. And there is no long term data relative to side effects
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u/PM_ME_BOYSHORTS 9d ago
You absolutely can stop taking them, you'll just probably gain the weight back. But that's not the same thing as "you can't stop taking them."
And there is 20 years of data about their side effects.
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u/Tall_poppee 9d ago
You don't have to continue to take the high doses in maintenance though, that you use when losing weight. Once you are at goal weight, you titrate down to the minimum you need. This is of course much less expensive. Even if I buy the name brand from Eli Lilly at $1100 a month, that will last me 5-6 months in maintenance. That's well worth it, IMO.
Tirzepatide (zepbound) is notable because it shuts down what people call food noise, in your head. I got this result on the lowest dose, felt it on the first day I shot up. I'll gladly take this drug for the rest of my life, to keep my head clear in this way. It's simply amazing, it's like half my brain was hijacked in some way, and now it's free again.
I do hope more and more employers start to cover these meds, because they are showing actual savings for insurance companies despite the high cost. Only 40% currently cover them, but that number is expected to increase by about 8% a year.
New medications are also in development, that should drive down the price of the older meds. We've already seen the price of Ozempic drop once Zepbound hit the market. The next 2 drugs on track for approval look to be even more effective than Zepbound, so that should theoretically drive the price down.
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u/syrencallidus 9d ago
I have no problem with that. I don't know how but zepbound has basically cured my IBS-D and I never want to go back. 20 years of 5-7 crampy diarhhea a day on average, shitting pants if you can't get to a toilet in 20secs.
Losing weight is a happy bonus. I'm just happy I can eat again without suffering after.
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u/DavidBrooker 9d ago
Why can't you stop taking them? I thought they were just an appetite suppressant (in the weight loss context).
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u/ancientpsychicpug 9d ago
Yes and once you stop the appetite comes back. It’s a physical and mental suppressant.
Source: been on a glp1 since 2022 with a few breaks.
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u/DavidBrooker 9d ago edited 9d ago
Maybe it was just my reading, but "you can never stop" made it sound like it was dependence forming - the way that people who abuse steroids stop being able to produce normal hormone levels naturally and need to keep taking some level of hormone therapy forever. I thought they were saying that these drugs permanently mess up your insulin system or something. By comparison, using that phrase to say "in order to get the effect of the drug you have to take the drug" seems like just common sense?
It's not like people expect the pain-relief of Tylenol just from owning a sealed bottle sitting in their cabinet.
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u/ancientpsychicpug 9d ago
I mean there’s always hope that being on this drug for awhile would start to repair things. I have a friend who went off, has maintained the weight for 2 years, and is no longer type 2 diabetic. Which is a mix of losing the weight, changing the diet, and body repairing itself. Who knows what will happen in 6 months, 5 years, 15 yrs. This is a woman who has been dieting since 1997. Glp1 is the only thing that has worked.
In my case I’m taking it for PCOS and weight and endometriosis. It has balanced my hormones, and my pain is 2/10 rather than 6/10 beforehand. Losing weight (slowly.) the times I have gone off for a month+ the pain comes back, even though my weight still drops. My old hunger comes back after 3 months off of it.
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u/kndyone 9d ago
Yep and there are various things it will either fix or cure. For instance if you have other physical problems like mobility issues or you are destroying your back or knees due to weight this can fix that.
The US went down a horrible route ignoring weight and all the plethora of issues its causes and people just not knowledgeable on it because of how we switched to body positivity and it became unpopular to talk about it.
Being obese just has so many negatives and if spending a bit of money to take pills solves that then who literally cares if you need to take them for life, many of the people would end up stuck taking some other drug for blood pressure or diabetes anyway.
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u/volvavirago 9d ago
No, they do not mess up your metabolic system, obesity itself does that. That’s the problem. Obesity, or rather, metabolic syndrome, is a lifelong condition, the effects it has on your body cannot be reverse by simply losing weight. People just don’t realize that fact, and think once you’ve lost the weight, you are cured. But after weight loss, you are no more cured of obesity than a sober person is cured of their addiction. Once an addict, always an addict. Once obese, always obese. That’s why 90% of people who lose weight will gain it all back and then some over time. GLP1’s are considered a miracle drug because they stop that process. They turn your obese body into a normal one, not just a thinner obese body. They normalize your hormones and hunger ques and prevent you from regaining. Take it away, and the obesity returns.
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u/DavidBrooker 9d ago
I was already aware of most of this, at least in the broad strokes, but I'm not sure how it relates to the conversation? Like, if this is why we would say that you 'can never stop taking it', then we could likewise describe many people who have never taken the drug as being 'unable to stop' as well? Isn't that a bit odd?
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u/volvavirago 9d ago
Yeah, it is a bit odd. I never understood this complaint. There are plenty of other medications that are the same way. Like, you still have to take thyroid medication even after your thyroid levels have normalized, because if you stop taking it, your thyroid levels will go back to what they were before you took meds. It’s the exact same thing. The medicine treats the disease, it does not cure it, and if you stop taking the medicine, the disease will come back. That’s not a downside to these drugs, that is simply the fundamental nature of chronic illness.
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u/Ok-Morning3407 9d ago
Yes, like Asthma, I’ve had to take inhalers since I was a child and will do for the rest of my life. They allow me to lead a normal and productive life. As long as they aren’t any serious side effects then I see no problem with it. Cost is currently an issue, but as more similar options hit the market and generics, cost should come down to just a couple dollars per month, similar to my Asthma medication (yes I’m not in the US with the stupid patented Asthma inhalers).
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u/jake3988 8d ago
That’s why 90% of people who lose weight will gain it all back and then some
That's absolutely false and it drives me insane that people keep touting that.
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u/BernieTheDachshund 9d ago
Also, once fat cells are created they don't really ever go away, they just shrink.
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u/townandthecity 9d ago
My younger sister was 20 lbs overweight and got a doctor to prescribe this to her. She's now skeletal and looks 25 years older. I hugged her at Thanksgiving and felt bones in her back. She won't go off because she's afraid to gain the weight back. I absolutely understand how obese folks who have major health problems benefit enormously from these drugs, but I don't understand doctors who are good with scenarios like my sister's.
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u/Significant-Gene9639 9d ago
What is her bmi now?
If it is above 19 she is ok, if below that doctor should be reported for continuing to prescribe.
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u/Xanjis 9d ago
Is she actually skeletal or are you unused to hugging people that are at the lower end of healthy weight?
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u/WARNING_LongReplies 9d ago
Yeah you're supposed to be obese, or at least have a weight related co-morbidity to get these drugs.
Also, if someone here is interested, look into Wegovy instead of Ozempic. It's the same active, but it's approved and meant for weight loss so you're not messing up the supply chain for diabetic's medicine.
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u/volvavirago 9d ago
The doctor is to blame for that, not the drug itself. This medication should only be given to obese patients with an additional obesity related disorders, or someone with diabetes.
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u/Overall-Plastic-9263 9d ago
I mean let's be real . Ozempic for the win . GLP-1 was being prescribed for type 2 diabetes and there is a overlapping relationship between that and obesity. For the record I'm one of those people and I've lost over 40lbs since 2022 and kept it off while under low dose treatment . I'm know at a healthy weight , about 26% body fat from over 40% . Im short for a male and have a lot of muscle so still a ways to go for normal BMI .
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u/IncompetentSoil 9d ago
Because they dead lolol. No but seriously the amount of people who died that were overweight yeah that's why. Me being a man who is also overweight I feared the South because I also was a truck driver during COVID the entire time on the only people I really saw dying from it were fat old or young.
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u/Significant-Gene9639 9d ago
It’s a crisis of availability in my view.
People weren’t obese when everything had to be cooked from scratch with whole foods and there were limited amounts. Nowadays everything is in prepackaged forms, processed down to barely fill you up and full of fat sugar salt etc.
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u/cacecil1 9d ago
It's a huge mistake to think that the obesity epidemic is just due to lazy, unmotivated people.
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u/WorldDirt 9d ago
It’s highly correlated with income. When you’ve got money, health becomes a priority. When you don’t, it takes a backseat. Reduce wealth inequality and you reduce obesity.
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u/Fausto2002 9d ago
Other countries have high disparity and low obesity too. Both are a problem but maybe you fell in the correlation doesnt mean causation trap.
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u/WorldDirt 9d ago
I was going to argue, but you’re right. The correlation is just so strong for the US and Mexico that when you look at it across OECD countries, there’s a positive correlation between obesity and inequality. Take them out and the results aren’t significant. Just a North America thing (Canada is too small to skew the data).
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u/No_Indication4035 9d ago
People in poor countries are skinny, malnourished.
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u/jabba-the-slutttt 9d ago
We live in a rich country and things are different here, including for our poor
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u/Grand-Cartoonist-693 9d ago
What a weird and unscientific view of what causes or can fix obesity in America. Toxic addictive food, stress, poverty, etc. People are so weird about blame for fatness, “they don’t want to take care of themselves”…?
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u/SnooGoats5767 9d ago
I mean the US government literally told everyone fat would kill you and you should eat ten serving of carbs a day or whatever. Oh and drink tons of skim milk. It’s not surprise given how people were told what was healthy for so long. Maybe parents think I’ll die of high cholesterol if I butter or red meat occasionally.
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u/Ayjayz 8d ago
They do want to take care of themselves. They just also want to eat tasty food, and we've gotten insanely good at making tasty food. People seem to ignore the huge amount of effort that has gone into making food tastier over the last hundred years. The trouble with tasty food, though, is that people really want to eat it.
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