President Trump: Making America Great Again...

[Clark Addison]

China has far less obesity than the US. They also are much more willing than we are to describe people as fat and call them fat to their face, so maybe we should bring that back.

For what its worth they are also much more likely to tell people that they have big noses, even if it is a culturally-biased opinion of a person's nose.

[YOhio]

I wish this is what Private Pyle responded to Drill Gunnery SGT Hartman in "Full Metal Jacket." Instead of "Sir-I have a weight problem." He should have said "Sir-I just don't have the safety triggers or an efficient metabolic makeup......" LOL! The kid who was the First Captain my senior year did Air Assault School with me. He was a genius who studied Mechanical Engineering at West Point-I think he was chosen as a Rhodes Scholar. In the sling loading phase of the class an instructor asked why the load had to be balanced in some way or some distance away from the chopper hauling it and he gave some Mech Eng answer that I am sure Jeff Lebowski would love that finished with harmonic oscillations being avoided...or something like that. The Air Assault SGT eyes just about came out of his skull. I thought it was funny-but maybe you had to be there.

Haha. Nerds are so annoying.

[YOhio]

China has far less obesity than the US. They also are much more willing than we are to describe people as fat and call them fat to their face, so maybe we should bring that back.

For what it’s worth they are also much more likely to tell people that they have big noses, even if it is a culturally-biased opinion of a person's nose.

They also don’t eat cheese and eat a lot of tofu. Hard pass.

[BigPiney]

Funny how other developed countries have managed to have food abundance without the massive obesity epidemic we have here in the US. Why is that?

One of the things we can do is stop subsidizing the the corn farmers and getting rid of cheap high-fructose corn syrup with is super unhealthy. RFK Jr has said he is against so much corn syrup in our diet. The problem is, this solution would require us to import cane sugar to make up the deficit. But making people pay market rates for sugar would be a good thing. That corn subsidy is a subsidy for obesity. It is crazy.

If he make cane sugar Dr Pepper more available everywhere and gets rid of the hfcs in it I may go full MAGA.

[frank ryan]

If he make cane sugar Dr Pepper more available everywhere and gets rid of the hfcs in it I may go full MAGA.

I love soda with cane sugar.

[SteelBlue]

Funny how other developed countries have managed to have food abundance without the massive obesity epidemic we have here in the US. Why is that?

One of the things we can do is stop subsidizing the the corn farmers and getting rid of cheap high-fructose corn syrup with is super unhealthy. RFK Jr has said he is against so much corn syrup in our diet. The problem is, this solution would require us to import cane sugar to make up the deficit. But making people pay market rates for sugar would be a good thing. That corn subsidy is a subsidy for obesity. It is crazy.

One of my brothers lived in Japan for 3 years (not as a missionary) after marrying a Japanese woman and mentioned public health visits where they measured the waists of every adult family member. My brother has always been fit and thin, ran x country for BYU-H, and would be described as "slight" here in the states at 6' and probably 175 pounds. Has been a runner his whole life. He was creeping up on a 34" waist at the time and they (the public health officials) were very concerned for him. Gave him a workout program and info about diet. He was floored and a bit insulted but he did say he had to give them credit for trying to be an early warning.

[falafel]

Hey, I appreciate his perspective here. He is an optimist on America surviving MAGA v2.

Yet he balances that with doom and gloom about how China is kicking our ass every way imaginable.

I do appreciate YO's attempts to find optimism during times when not everyone can find the same. I know that everyone has to do what they need to do to be healthy and happy.

[LVAllen]

Funny how other developed countries have managed to have food abundance without the massive obesity epidemic we have here in the US. Why is that?

One of the things we can do is stop subsidizing the the corn farmers and getting rid of cheap high-fructose corn syrup with is super unhealthy. RFK Jr has said he is against so much corn syrup in our diet. The problem is, this solution would require us to import cane sugar to make up the deficit. But making people pay market rates for sugar would be a good thing. That corn subsidy is a subsidy for obesity. It is crazy.

Market rates for sugar??

Dude, sugar is cheap as hell. It's only because of protectionist sugar tariff-rate quotas that drive the price in the US above that of the world that companies went to corn syrup in the first place. Protectionist policy for the win, am I right?

[myboynoah]

Market rates for sugar??

Dude, sugar is cheap as hell. It's only because of protectionist sugar tariff-rate quotas that drive the price in the US above that of the world that companies went to corn syrup in the first place. Protectionist policy for the win, am I right?

So, you agree with The Dude.

[Jeff Lebowski]

The US is glaringly worse than many developed countries, but obesity is all over. Here's the ignominious list:

https://data.worldobesity.org/rankings/

I have no doubt that getting rid of cheap sweeteners would help, but obesity truly is a complex chronic health problem. There will always be a need for a multimodality approach, including drug therapy and bariatric surgery for those who need it most.

For hundreds, if not thousands of years, polynesian people subsisted on fish and whatever plants they could scrounge up and grow on their islands, resulting in a calorie deficit. To overcome that, their bodies adapted a unique and highly efficient metabolism. Then they were "discovered" and introduced to pigs, chickens, sugar, etc. They still have the genetic for a low-calorie survival, but now they have calorie dense food. If you look at your chart, the US obesity rate is only exceeded by these countries fighting that unique genetic heritage.

tl;dr - that list does not support your argument.

The US is an extreme outlier in developed countries. Nobody is claiming that we won't always have some fat people, but to just shrug this off as a result of modern excess is a copout.

[BlueK]

Market rates for sugar??

Dude, sugar is cheap as hell. It's only because of protectionist sugar tariff-rate quotas that drive the price in the US above that of the world that companies went to corn syrup in the first place. Protectionist policy for the win, am I right?

Yup, stupid tariffs.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Market rates for sugar??

Dude, sugar is cheap as hell. It's only because of protectionist sugar tariff-rate quotas that drive the price in the US above that of the world that companies went to corn syrup in the first place. Protectionist policy for the win, am I right?

You are right. The subsidy is (partially at least) in the form of tariffs on sugar. So if you got rid of those tariffs, corn syrup prices would go up and we would consume less of it. That is a more correct description of the issue.

FTR, we also subsidize corn ethanol. Why doesn't Elon Musk and DOGE stop that socialist, command-economy nonsense? Oh that's right, corn farmers are MAGA.

[Jeff Lebowski]

China has far less obesity than the US. They also are much more willing than we are to describe people as fat and call them fat to their face, so maybe we should bring that back.

For what its worth they are also much more likely to tell people that they have big noses, even if it is a culturally-biased opinion of a person's nose.

The first time I returned to my mission area in Japan (15 years or so after my mission) I went to church and several people said to me, "Holy cow, you are fat now."

Maybe we need to make public shaming great again. Instead we do this "fat positivity" BS.

[myboynoah]

You are right. The subsidy is (partially at least) in the form of tariffs on sugar. So if you got rid of those tariffs, corn syrup prices would go up and we would consume less of it. That is a more correct description of the issue.

FTR, we also subsidize corn ethanol. Why doesn't Elon Musk and DOGE stop that socialist, command-economy nonsense? Oh that's right, corn farmers are MAGA.

Bingo!

[YOhio]

You are right. The subsidy is (partially at least) in the form of tariffs on sugar. So if you got rid of those tariffs, corn syrup prices would go up and we would consume less of it. That is a more correct description of the issue.

FTR, we also subsidize corn ethanol. Why doesn't Elon Musk and DOGE stop that socialist, command-economy nonsense? Oh that's right, corn farmers are MAGA.

You can blame Trump/Musk for a lot of things, but corn subsidies have been pretty well embraced by both parties for the last century or so.