With how cool video games are now and with all the fast food choices if I were 18 today I’d be 300lbs.
I was born in '73 and so I’m turning 38 soon, and I wasn’t a jock growing up, but the combination of a few bike rides, some walking and a few games of soccer with buddies and the fact that Coke only came in the can and the 2 liter(which is in the fridge for the family to share) and other junk foods didn’t come in that Xtreme HungerBuster! size yet kept me at a reasonable 173lbs on my 18th birthday. I remember because my weight was 173 and my birth year was 1973.
So I’m just saying that when I say that yeah, even the white women I see here in Taiwan that are only 23 or 24 and look like they’ve popped out two kids already it’s not because I think my generation walked uphill to school both ways in a blizzard every day, but that the addition of what even my 38 year-old self (who just got back from a 30 minute run in 33C/91F) would call light activity and the act of stopping at one can of Coke because when you think about it one can was more than enough and that the cartoons stopped at 11AM (at least the good ones) on Saturday morning and Atari sucked and we all knew it so that kept me from being a huge fatass till today.
[quote]Charlie Horse wrote:
Oh and in case anyone was wondering how they measure obesity it is the BMI scale.
Take the test http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi
The largest group is the normal and overweight catagory. It’s a bell curve and 25 is the center of the curve and separates overweight from normal. In case you were wondering where they get obesity stats from.
[/quote]
I didn’t think about that. As the BMI index doesn’t take into account bodycomp a large number of people on this site would qualify as ‘obese’ and ‘morbidly’ so.[/quote]
Don’t even get me started on how bogus BMI is for individual body composition assessment. It doesn’t work, it isn’t appropriate, and that’s very much not what it was designed for. Worse: US government health policy defines obesity in terms of BMI.
However, for population and public health research, it is a valid tool. If you can assume a fairly standard distribution of body types, then height-weight comparisions (which is what BMI is) is … a semi-valid basis (there are still problems with the specific cut-off levels and the units, but at lease as a gross measure, it works). And the data are somewhat reasonably available – your doctor’s office will take height/weight measurements, there are height and weight data on drivers licenses (though I suspect they’re inaccurately reported), and it’s trivial to compute BMI given these inputs in a large statistical study (I’ve done similar work in the past).
Another anectdote: a buddy of mine worked for an online photo site for a while. Turns out that they had a bunch of old historic group shots from various parts of the US. Even without other signs of the era, it was very easy to distinguish photos from the early 1970s and prior, from the 19980s, 90s, and beyond. People were thinner then. Or so he mentioned.
I see some heavy folks (SF Bay Area here), though it really varies by where you are. There’s some variation across the Bay Area, and also a lot of variance in different parts of the country. I suspect the biggest differences are among social classes, though people who are active tend to remain in pretty good shape.
I think the biggest difference is that people don’t care to cover up at the beach anymore. They just don’t give a shit if they look bad or not.
Back when I was in high school (in the 90s), my fat friends didn’t wear bikinis. They’d wear a one piece suit with a wrap or something similar. I remember spending hours with them in dressing rooms trying to find a suit that flattered them. My mom stopped wearing two piece suits after she had my sister because she had stretch marks all over her stomach.
People used to cover unattractive parts of their body in order to draw attention to their better features. Like a heavy girl who wears a corset to cover her spare tire while also drawing attention to her massive cleavage or a girl who spends time applying nice eye makeup to draw attention to her eyes and away from her thin lips.
My sister, who is 10 years younger than me, is overweight and always wore a bikini. All of her friends wear bikinis too, even the ones that weigh well over 200 pounds. They don’t seem to care how anything looks on them, if it’s in style, they wear it.
[quote]Charlie Horse wrote:
The topic reminds me of conversations I’ve had with friends. I’m not seeing the over abundance of fat that everyone else sees. Sure the odd fat person here and there but not as many as op or friends are complaining about. Weird. Most people I see are normal sized(meaning capable of wearing normal sizes).
[/quote]
its funny, women have a harder time admitting their are tons of fat people everywhere you look. “the odd fat person” i find that statement funny.
I once talked to a girl who said she was 180lbs, and thought that was average weight for a girl. i almost dropped right there. 180lbs average for a girl. ummm, there are wide receivers on the patriots that weigh that much. that is freaken huge if your a girl.
personally, any girl over 130lbs to me is a bit chunky. a beach here me and my daughter go to everywhere almost every weekend up in NH, called Hampton beach. ive noticed every year for awhile now, there are less and less fit people. you could play a game, point out the skinny girl, and you’d honestly have a hard time finding one. no joke. and thats ashame.
[quote]Charlie Horse wrote:
Oh and in case anyone was wondering how they measure obesity it is the BMI scale.
Take the test http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi
The largest group is the normal and overweight catagory. It’s a bell curve and 25 is the center of the curve and separates overweight from normal. In case you were wondering where they get obesity stats from.
[/quote]
BMI is totally thrown out the window when trying to use that on bodybuilders. of course a bodybuilder is going to weigh more. that doesn’t take into account, muscle mass compared to fat mass. it just looks at height vs weight.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
I just did a quick google of the fittest and fattest cities in the US.
According to a 2 year old yahoo article Miami,FL is the fattest city in the country. Kinda odd with the weather and beaches??[/quote]
Those articles are pure bullshit. I’ve been to over 30 states and the big cities in those States. Miami is NOT fatter than San Antonio. That’s the worst city I’ve seen. The worst area I’ve been to was Southwest Texas in the desert on rt 90 between San Antonio and Big Bend NP. Every single person I saw was 300+. It was eerie.
The fittest big city I’ve been to was San Diego. The only fat people there were tourists. I was expecting fit people in Portland as well. In the actual downtown, that’s not what I saw.
[quote]Charlie Horse wrote:
Oh and in case anyone was wondering how they measure obesity it is the BMI scale.
Take the test http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi
The largest group is the normal and overweight catagory. It’s a bell curve and 25 is the center of the curve and separates overweight from normal. In case you were wondering where they get obesity stats from.
[/quote]
That kind of makes sense with the Miami yahoo article, because they were up there as far as jacked up dudes compared to other cities. They’re probably leading to them being a “fat” city.
And if you want to see really lazy, you can even see it here in Taiwan.
This is a video I made outside a department store. It’s 8 storeys tall and this is the line for the elevator. yes, there’s an escalator inside too. Also, don’t forget that it’s for damn sure that not all of these people are going all the way to the 8th floor. Shit.
[quote]Charlie Horse wrote:
The topic reminds me of conversations I’ve had with friends. I’m not seeing the over abundance of fat that everyone else sees. Sure the odd fat person here and there but not as many as op or friends are complaining about. Weird. Most people I see are normal sized(meaning capable of wearing normal sizes).
[/quote]
its funny, women have a harder time admitting their are tons of fat people everywhere you look. “the odd fat person” i find that statement funny.
I once talked to a girl who said she was 180lbs, and thought that was average weight for a girl. i almost dropped right there. 180lbs average for a girl. ummm, there are wide receivers on the patriots that weigh that much. that is freaken huge if your a girl.
personally, any girl over 130lbs to me is a bit chunky. a beach here me and my daughter go to everywhere almost every weekend up in NH, called Hampton beach. ive noticed every year for awhile now, there are less and less fit people. you could play a game, point out the skinny girl, and you’d honestly have a hard time finding one. no joke. and thats ashame.[/quote]
Don’t get me started on Hampton beach…I go there once every 4 years or so hoping it gets better…it never does.
I live in Estonia and come from Spain. From Mallorca more specifically, which is an island and beachwhoring is quite common. You’d expect people to be in shape but…no! I estimate that, among young people, 50-60% are overweight. Here in Estonia I’d say it’s 10% or even less.
In Spain people eat out very often and there’s plenty of junk food available. In Estonia, people almost never eat out and besides McDonald’s and Hesburger there isn’t much choice for junk food.
[quote]Nards wrote:
And if you want to see really lazy, you can even see it here in Taiwan.
This is a video I made outside a department store. It’s 8 storeys tall and this is the line for the elevator. yes, there’s an escalator inside too. Also, don’t forget that it’s for damn sure that not all of these people are going all the way to the 8th floor. Shit.
That is just sad.
But that is society today. Of my entire family, not just my immediate family, I am the only person I know that exercises regularly and watches their diet.
