Posted on 06/15/2015 9:19:02 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
I read the headline over at the Washington Post (via Newsalert) and I can’t say I was surprised:
The average American woman weighs 166.2 pounds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As reddit recently pointed out, that’s almost exactly as much as the average American man weighed in the early 1960s.
Men, you’re not looking too hot in this scenario either. Over the same time period you gained nearly 30 pounds, from 166.3 in the 60s to 195.5 today. Doing the same comparison as above, today’s American man weighs almost as much as 1.5 American women from the 1960s. At 195.5 pounds, put five American guys in a room and you’ve gathered roughly half a ton of manhood.
Overall weight gain since 1960 is slightly greater for women (18.5 percent) than for men (17.6 percent). And both sexes have gained roughly an inch in height over the same period, which accounts for some of that weight gain.
Maybe the weight is seen as unsightly by some, but on average, those who are overweight but not obese might be healthier. I imagine it matters how much one weighs in proportion to height and if the person is active and healthy vs. overweight and sedentary. I must admit that at five foot six, if I weighed 166, I would be a mess. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), I can’t carry that kind of weight but some women can.
Also read:
Come to my church.
I have several friends I keep up with in Tampa Bay and southern California who are also that tall, so I know it isn’t just north Texas.
When I last went back to where I grew up (Tulsa) there were a lot.
There are a fair amount of former models in some of my activities so it is possible that this skews my social group.
I am only five eight. Used to be five nine before my discs compressed.
“Watch a few pre-WW2 movies and notice how small everyone is”
How true! People in movies on TV are much smaller than in real life. On my phone, they are positively itsy-bitsy. I guess a tablet would help. /s
: \
For Americans it is far more often the consequence of being sedentary.
Children are brutally honest. They cant help it.
I remember being a child in the 1960’s, and once in a while hearing another child blurt out, “Mom, that man is REALLY FAT.”
The mother would recoil in embarrassment. Point is, a really obese person was so rare as to be highly noteworthy to a child. Today it is so common, it is normal. You never hear a child blurt this out anymore.
Well, we know race place a part in it, even without a study telling us so. You see so few obese asians, period. You see so many obese blacks and hispanics. Of course this is part of it. Just look at a full shopping cart on food stamp day. Lots of treats and snacks.
I was born in 1950 and am over 6’2”. Never once did I or anyone in my extended family ever get or see powdered government milk, or cheese for that matter.
I’d add that my dad never finished 5th grade and his family were share croppers in South Carolina. My mother was part of a family that subsisted during the depression by growing their own food and even looking for wild greens in the woods.
I don’t discount nutrition. But what I am talking about as what I perceive is a marked difference over 200-300 years isn’t just nutrition.
So?
And you think your family didn't eat better in the 1950's then they did in the 1930's?
But what I am talking about as what I perceive is a marked difference over 200-300 years isn’t just nutrition.
And you are wrong.
Suggest you read a few books on Forensic anthropology. They show that the biggest thing that drives the size of a population is nutrition.
I’m 6’1” I would notice if suddenly there were a lot of females as tall as me, or towering over me.
We differ.
“Above average” is good, right?
Unless the actors stand next to a measuring stick, how are we supposed to assess their height?
Regards,
I believe that the Dutch are now the world's tallest people.
Regards,
LOLz....excellent.
And how much taller are the average American men and women today?
I’m ashamed to say I’m one of them. I went from boxer in the twenties to now 47 and over 300 pounds. Good grief.no I could give lots of excuses but I’m a conservative and I’m the one to blame. And that is the truth. been eating lots of fish the past month and lost about 16 pounds.
that should be competition for post of the day lol
I weigh less now than I did when I grad high school. Riding over 7,000 miles per year on my road bike, cycling big hills and mountains, my wife and I both are skinner these days. Leaving tomorrow for a two day trip to the North Georgia mountains to ride the big gaps. Fun stuff. Better than running. My ortho DR told me cycling was tons better for our knees and hips than running. I hate running after 20 years plus of Army running and ruining my knees. Cycling is much easier on the knees.
“I don’t believe it”
I do-you almost never see an obese person out here, but this is a rural area with no big chain supermarket-and most of us grow a lot of our own food-but go 23 miles to the next county where a town of 6000 or so has a WalMart and a big chain supermarket, and the wide screen mamas are lumbering up and down the aisles, filling carts with Little Debbies, ice cream and instant mashed potatoes.
I’m Hispanic, 5’9” and 108-110 lb-the same I’ve weighed since I was 17 or so-but I was brought up on a ranch where we didn’t eat processed food and worked hard-I still eat fresh food and work hard.
Aw, look. She caught a pair of baby Whales. I hope she lets them go.
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