112 sats \ 11 replies \ @Satosora 12h \ on: For the first time in decades, the obesity rate has fallen. charts_and_numbers
People cant afford to be fat anymore.
Are you suggesting obesity fell because of food prices? Like, not in 2001, not in 2005, not after the great recession in 2008, not in 2017, not in 2022 but precisely in 2023 it became too expensive to get Obesity?
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If that were the story, the relationship with education should be flipped.
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I get that. And I get that food has become more expensive.
But I think it's a wild conclusion to say this is the reason for peak obesity.
Expenditure for food at home only rose to as high as they were in 2017. Americans spend more on food because they eat out more. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=76967
You're right in a sense that it's not nothing. But hard for me see to see food prices rising in 2021/2022 to cause weight loss in 2023.
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Americans spend more on food because they eat out more.
You have to be careful with that conclusion. The data shows Americans spent more, but fast food prices increased, so we don't know if they ate more from seeing that they spent more.
But hard for me see to see food prices rising in 2021/2022 to cause weight loss in 2023.
Weight loss itself takes time and is only going to be recorded at some sort of medical check-up. If you start eating out less in 2021-2022, it's perfectly reasonable that it would take until 2023 for a doctor to record that you are no longer obese.
Right, but that would primarily effect lower income people, wouldn't it?
Or, is the idea that it's college educated people specifically who realized that fast-food is too expensive now?
There could be a story where everyone reduced their fast food intake, but college educated people substituted to healthier alternatives, while non-college grads switched to cheaper but similarly unhealthy foods.
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I've heard that said a lot, but I'm not sure it's true.
Take drinks, for example. Drink water instead of soda, fancy bottled iced tea, fancy juices, and you're going to be much healthier and have more money left.
And if you're spending 20% of your food budget on drinks, then you're much better off.
When I see what look like lower income people in the grocery store, they don't have the truly cheap food (bulk flour, rice, oats, potatoes, etc). Their carts are almost always loaded up with expensive junk food of all kinds. Crap like lunchables, chips, sodas, etc.
One exception here is new immigrants. They will often have what I'd consider to be a fairly health grocery cart.
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