Fatheads

Maybe people in foreign countries aren't obese because they have to eat shit like this.

Data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that obesity has hit a plateau in the U.S., reports the NY Times.

Oh really.

They claim that obesity levels for men have remained constant for five years and ten years for women.

Before you go getting all crazy happy and doing an extra hour on the elliptical machine, bear in mind that 34% of Americans are obese which is more than double the percentage of just thirty years ago.

Breaking it down even further, African-American adults have the highest obesity rates — 37 percent among men and nearly 50 percent among women. For Hispanic women, the rate is 43 percent. Hispanic and black children have higher rates than non-Hispanic whites.

Frankly I'm curious about whether the obesity gauge has changed at all during the last thirty years. The article states that people are considered obese if their body mass index — a ratio of height to weight — is 30 or greater. Someone five and a half feet tall is obese at 186 pounds; a six-foot person is obese at 221 pounds.

Now I'm not defending overeating whilst reclining on the couch, but I have a hard time thinking of someone with these measurements as being obese. Chubby, maybe, but certainly some other term less threatening than 'obese.'

There is no question we are a fat nation and our obesity may be leveling out, but I'd be interested to see whether the criteria have changed in the last generation. Certainly we're eating a lot less 'real food' and a lot more high fructose corn syrup.