Posted on 01/30/2025 10:57:58 AM PST by marktwain
At one of the confirmation hearings in the Senate, for President Trump's nominee Robert F. Kennedy to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kennedy asked an interesting question, slightly paraphrased below:
How is it that the wealthiest nation on the earth, the United States of America, is not the healthiest nation on earth? How is it we have increasing levels of Obesity, Depression, Diabeties, etc?
The question assumes the wealthier a nation is, the healthier it should be. This is not necessarily true.
Many of the problems noted by RFK Jr. are diseases caused by abundance. Wealth is the cause of the disease, not its cure.
The human body is designed to be physically active. Humans have, for thousands of years, had to work hard to have enough to eat. Foods which humans love have been hard to find in nature, which is why they have been so desirable.
Fat is difficult to find naturally, at least in abundance.
Sugar is difficult to find naturally, in abundance.
Salt is generally not abundant in nature.
The industrial revolution, followed by the rise of the petrolium society, and now the digital economy, have rendered food in the United States of America abundant, cheap, and easily attained.
The same petrolium society with the digital economy has made exercise unnecessary for the vast majority of people.
The incredible success of sanitation, vaccines, and medical procedures have resulted in great numbers of people who would have died before adulthood or in early adulthood more than 65 years ago. Large numbers of people who would have died in accidents have been saved because of higher safety standards. These factors have resulted in a higher population of older and sicker people vulnerable to diseases of abundance.
As mentioned in the movie "Idiocracy", More people are surviving and reproducing who would not have been able to in a society which was not so wealthy.
Thus, much of our medical problems have resulted from our wealth, not in spite of our wealth.
Of course, the rise in wealth has corresponded with a rise in processed food, in more money being used in the "healthcare" industry, in more use of plastics, pesticides, and artificial fertilizer.
It appears more likely all of these things are the result of more wealth.
No other large country has food as cheap, has everything as convenient, and allows so much wealth to its individual citizens, as the United States.
When we were less wealthy, we were healthier in most of the things RFK Jr. mentions.
We also had more communicative diseases, more accidents, more deaths during pregnancy and childbirth, more deficiency diseases, more problems caused by insufficient calories in the diet.
Those maladies have been severely reduced by our unparalleled wealth. In their place, we now have numerous diseases and problems caused by abundance.
‘Japan is wealthy. Obesity & diabetes are much lower than United States’
They also eat tons of ultra processed food and they don’t exercise.
Walking is exercise, and they walk everywhere.
‘It is only in a very wealthy society that poor people get fat.’
The processed food tend to be the cheapest. It’s expensive to eat healthy.
They also eat tons of ultra processed food and they don’t exercise. So the usual trendy theories to ‘explain’ obesity are junk."
Japanese exercise much more than Americans do. They walk or bicycle much, much more than Americans, because of the way their mass transit system is set up.
Meat is much more expensive in Japan than in the United States, as is food as a percentage of their income. As a result, Japanese eat a lot less fat than Americans do.
Japanese men average 53-84 grams of fat a day. As of 2021
https://www.statista.com/statistics/995384/japan-daily-fat-intake-male-population-by-age-group/
Americans averaged about 150 grams of fat a day in 1960. From a CDC download for 1960 cdc_73365_DS1-2.pdf. I suspect it has gone up since then.
If anyone can come up with a number for the present consumption of fat in the USA, it would add to the discussion.
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I am willing to be convinced. Please provide the links to back up your assertions. It would be nice to see the statistics that there are more obese people per capital than in the United States, in Mexico, as many, including RFK Jr. are claiming otherwise.
"India is not wealthy yet it’s nicknamed the world’s capital of lofi (lean outside fat inside) and diabete. In wealthy Japan, Korea, Taiwan, poor people are skinny, not fat. If you don’t even get basic facts right, your theories are worthless."
There appears to be a contradiction in your assertion about India. What do you mean by "lean outside fat inside".
‘Walking is exercise, and they walk everywhere’
I wish it was genetics. Then all my uncle’s and father would have made it into their 80’s. No one made it past age 72. I had several health issues in my mid-50’s. I know exactly why I was able to get rid of all health issues. It was quitting my lifetime secure job in mid-50’s age and begin daily aerobic exercise. I now know how daily exercise benefits to stay healthy without aches and pains.
You are right about burning calories with exercise. But what exercise does is enhances metabolism. Which helps burn more calories by having more energy to do more activities.
I always preach, it is not what you eat, It is how much you eat is what makes you fat. I never eat entire plate of food in restaurants. I request a container while ordering my meal, and put away portion of food served.
It’s also when and how frequent you eat.
The biggest change between today and 50 years ago was the amount of snacking people do.
They did both in the movie Wall-E.
The same reason some rare people can smoke for 50 years and not have a problem while the vast majority take years off their life.
Congratulations, you won the genetic lottery.
Look up any database (CIA, Wolrldstats, WHO) and you’ll find that Mexicans are more obese than Americans. Perplexity (AI engine which can scout internet for latest data) says “32.8 percent of Mexican adults are obese, more than the U.S., which has a 31.8 percent obesity rate.”
As to LOFI, just google the term, it means that poor people in India are still fat, with associated diseases as diabete, hypertension, heart risks... which falls in the examples that contradicts your theory that poor people in RICH countries are fat (no, they can be fat in poor countries too, due to change in diet).
Yes. I don’t snack between meals because growing up, that was not allowed. During most of my working years, I couldn’t snack because of the environment I worked in.
I am 5 foot 8 and weigh 170 lbs. A friend of mine is about 6 foot 2. He quit eating snacks while watching tv at night. He dropped 30 lbs in a couple of months.
I’ll settle for Quartzsite,
Friendly gun Laws !
‘The processed food tend to be the cheapest. It’s expensive to eat healthy’
Not true. Processed food are always much more expensive than unprocessed food, just look at the price per pound and compare. If processed food is the cheapest, why on earth do companies sell them and get less profit than unprocessed food? More hassle and less margin for a business? that makes no sense.
As to eating ‘healthy’, it doesn’t mean anything. I eat carnivore and I (like pretty much everyone who sees the light and becomes carnivore) feel much better and healthier than 10, 20 years ago when I ate “healthy”.
I thought it was because we eat too much and don’t move enough.
Well, “you can learn something new everyday.”
‘I always preach, it is not what you eat, It is how much you eat is what makes you fat’
Sorry but it’s not true. Eating carbs make you fat (and sick). Eating fat and proteins (meat) as much as you can never makes you fat. You won’t see a fat lion or a fat gnu. They, like us humans, don’t need the stupid calories count and “moderation” to stay fit, as long as they have the proper species diet.
In zoo, you are forbidden to feed the animal for a simple reason: to avoid them eating things that are NOT appropriate to their species and become sick.
You'll need guns there. They have a high crime rate. Of course, Slab City ain't Mayberry itself.
You can eat all you want on a keto diet and still lose weight
It is what you eat
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