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This sounds a bit too the-devil-made-me-do-it for my taste. There are some who can't help it but the majority of us just make poor choices regarding food and exercise. If your body is more conducive then you just have to work harder than others to be fit.
I'm in agreement with your point, and if my post seemed to resonate like I'm playing devil's advocate, then that was not my intent. My intent was to help to dispel the lingering implication that obesity is pervasive among a certain subset of the community due exclusively to poor eating habits, as if to suggest the oversimplification that they're more reckless, dismissive, and gluttonous with regard to their diet than other groups.
Something that hasn't been mentioned yet is age demographics. A lot of the thinner people that live in DC are 20-30 y.o. and single. Then they get married, have kids, and move to MD/VA. Meanwhile their metabolism slows down and all those Potbelly sandwiches and sedentary office-drone lack of activity starts to pack on the pounds.
Except the more affluent VA suburbs, at least (LC, FFX, etc) have pretty good obesity stats as well.
While you are correct that obesity stats need to be age adjusted, there are real lifestyle differences that count. (As WELL as probably some genetic differences). I would suggest that those lifestyle differences are not just personal choices, but are conditioned by culture, availability of food and recreation choices, as well as by upbringing.
The proliferation of fat women snowballs in effect against men. Go to Asia or Europe where people are skinny and you'll see the dating scene is way different. Growth in fat women = less options for men = the value of hot slender girls are even higher, average girls are now 'slender' and get more attention than they should, and chubby is the new norm. More men fighting over fewer quality women.
The proliferation of fat women snowballs in effect against men. Go to Asia or Europe where people are skinny and you'll see the dating scene is way different. Growth in fat women = less options for men = the value of hot slender girls are even higher, average girls are now 'slender' and get more attention than they should, and chubby is the new norm. More men fighting over fewer quality women.
But it seems far more likely that the difference is genetic--that hispanic and indigenous genes of the Americas tend to contribute to obesity while Caucasian genes are less likely to obesity. With the hispanic population in the US growing this might then suggest that our national obesity issue is not worse habits of our population but the shifting demographics of our population.
Except:
- Majority/mostly black areas west of the river, like Ward 5, have significantly lower obesity rates (and higher incomes, and higher education) than those east of the river, and not all the difference can be explained by a larger white/Asian/Latino minority in those wards.
- Obesity rates, particularly among children, have grown much faster than any ethnicity shifts could possibly explain; while it and aging could be contributing factors, I doubt it's anywhere near as important as changes in diet and exercise. You're only born once, but you decide what to eat or whether to exercise several times a day -- a shift in the population's collective decisions on diet/exercise would materialize in a few years, vs. a shift in the population's collective birthing decisions materializing over a generation.
Every idiot yuppie is also running marathons and 10Ks. I just want to slap the taste out of their mouth and be like "god, do something fun in your free time instead of making every aspect of your life competitive".
To some people, jogging IS fun. Who are you to tell another human being what they can and can't do with their lives for enjoyment?
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