The New York Post reports:
Reduce the obesity rate in New York City? Fat chance!
More New Yorkers than ever are living large, despite Nanny Bloomberg’s war on sugary drinks and fast foods, statistics obtained by The Post reveal.
The city’s obesity rate among adults has skyrocketed 25 percent since Mayor Bloomberg took office in 2002, city Health Department figures show.
I have read that higher levels of cortisol can cause people to retain fat, especially around the middle. Cortisol is a stress hormone. it would seem that something (Nanny Bloomberg and the food police?) is causing higher than normal stress levels in New York. Assuming the newly elected mayor is not the same kind of crackpot as their current one, maybe the stress level can go down and everyone will lose some weight!
Taubes is a quack.
Actually, obesity is quite simple. Too much stuff down your gob equals too much blubber round your middle.
I was in New York recently and I have to say that, on the whole, Americans are quite fat – except for rich people. Those on 5th Avenue were as lithesome as I.
Gary Taubes’ book “Why We Get Fat: And What To Do About It” explains the causes of the obesity and diabetic epidemic. Unfortunatily; there are too many people in the world to insure that everyone is can resolve these epidemics.
The book for medical personnel is called “Good Calories, Bad Calories”.
These are not diet books, they just discuss the failures of medical and nutricionists research. I would compare its failure to the reasons for the failure of climate science today.
Telling people what they can and cannot eat, is useless. It is a lifestyle change that is necessary. A combination of healthy eating, and exercise.
Even then if you are a weight lifter, you could have 3% body fat but since your 5’10” frame has 250 pounds of muscle, you are BMI fat.
It’s possible that the more responsible and more individualistic people have left the city, leaving a layer of wealthy, thin people and a large number of less responsible, likely heavier people.
And, as others note above, the rigor of surveys related to obesity and of the definitions of obesity are poor. Except at the extremes, and not always there either, weight correlates very poorly to health status or longevity.
10-4. It was defined down around 1997. BMI is the standard, but BMI is known to be useless, except at the extremes (very low or very high).
Indeed. Data is gathered by unverified phone surveys, then corrected . . . uhh . . . adjusted, by people who have a stake in an increase.
Wasn’t there a ‘redefinition’ of “obese” by several (financially ‘conflicted’) experts shortly before Mayor Nanny got elected? It would take a little time for the new definition to be accepted and used.
Somehow I find this statistic doubtful. Diet science is almost as fraudulent as Global Warming science.