(The Los Angeles Times) By 2030, nearly half of all U.S. adults will be obese, experts predict. Associated research findings from the National Library of Medicine.
There is no incentive to stop obesity. The rich charge enough for health insurance to make profit on these taxpayers who then die before collecting any social security. Perfect citizens.
We've been warned about this since the at least the 80s maybe earlier. Then when it became more common (still not common I don't think) that the food pyramid is a sham it explained by school lunches when I was younger didn't usually seem all that balanced after I thought about it as an adult.
Couple that with cities that aren't designed to be walkable and its dangerous to bicycle and it just doesn't look good.
But hey, schools are probably going to get to serve chocolate, whole and 2% milk again due to winning arguments like "....fortifying nutrients of whole milk....Protein helps build and repair Santa’s muscles" and "...scientists, experts built the Titanic, and amateurs built the ark." So, that'll help, right?
Chocolate milk is the least of the problems. And whole milk should be served because fat is fine for you and 2% and skim just replace the fat with sugar for the taste.
But milk is pretty much inconsequential. There are so many other issues like you mentioned. Zero city walkability, poor nutritional education, food is rarely made fresh and with high quality ingredients, we have too many preservatives, too much sugar, and too many chemicals.
In which countries is sugar added to skimmed milk? It is not in Sweden - skimmed and semi-skimmed are purely the result of removing fat from whole milk.
Schools in Japan only have whole milk (except in cases of students with allergies or the like) and are doing far better on obesity. Whilst I drink milk probably once every few months and could mostly not care if I never had it again, I don't think milk is the right place to look.
OK but do you see the absurdity of the arguments? Jesus.
Studies previous to over a decade ago slammed whole milk, which is why it was removed in the first place. Only until the last 10 almost 15 years have studies shown correlation with whole milk actually fighting child obesity though no conclusions as the actual 'why' have yet been found. Theories in both the biggest meta-analysis study (in English anyway) and some of the latest theorize it may be an indicator of the parents diets that they provide to their kids or it could be that kids simply eat more without whole milk. One study in particular attempted to figure this out by weighting the parents' BMI's on a point scale but was unable to really pull a substantial conclusion from it. Take your example of Japan where I think we can agree without me finding any analytics on their diet that it is different enough nutritionally from the US that it is an important distinction, except for a fairly short teen fad, what 7 years ago? Maybe it was a couple of years longer ago.
But all of that is beside the point. What I was trying to show is the absurdity of Congress' oversight of nutrition in the school systems. The GOP pushed this forward strictly at the behest of diary lobbyist and in particular a Pennsylvania conglomerate. In their statements, they never mentioned any actual studies and in-fact shat on 'experts' multiple times because they have no idea. The entire Santa bullshit from Virgina Foxx sounds almost exactly like a Got Milk? commercial in the 80s with definite the exact same key words.
These have outcomes that may not be ideal and the results do not persist if you stop taking them.
If know a lot of people on these. A good percentage of them are using it as a cheat code to continue their existing patterns. A couple have used it to assist in behavior modification. They seem to have better outcomes.
We'll see how people are doing in the long run.
The recipe for weight loss is simple. Changing a lifetime of behavior is not. I speak from experience.
I think these drugs are the new gastric bypass surgery. For some they will see results but they will go back to their preferences before long. For a smaller group, long term behavior change will occur.
Fingers crossed that there are no longer term health problems from these because so many people I know are on them.
I think the next generation of these will be better...
I have a friend on ozempic (for diabetes). It really seems like it's impossible for him to just use it to continue his excessive eating habits, because it suppresses his appetite and he just doesn't eat much anymore. He still eats garbage, but much less.