Derek Thompson writes in the Atlantic about a mysterious new "health wave" sweeping the United States:
In May 2024, the U.S. government reported that drug-overdose deaths fell 3 percent from 2022 to 2023, a rare bright spot in a century of escalating drug deaths. In June, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that traffic fatalities continued to decline after a huge rise in 2020 and 2021—and that this happened despite a rise in total vehicle miles traveled. In September, the U.S. government announced that the adult-obesity rate had declined in its most recent count, which ended in August 2023. Also in September, FBI analysis confirmed a double-digit decline in the national murder rate.
This is maybe a little overstated? Three of these things aren't health-related, per se, and both murder and traffic fatalities are obviously just reversions to the mean after a brief pandemic spike.
The only true health-related metric here is obesity, and the news here is a little more ambiguous than Thompson lets on:
The CDC's obesity data is a little fuzzy right now, but it shows a couple of things.¹ First, obesity is down, and has been since 2018. But severe obesity continues to rise, reaching a record 9.7% last year. This doesn't suggest some kind of health epidemic is at work.
For what it's worth, it also doesn't suggest that the obesity decline is likely the work of Ozempic and its ilk. The decline began around 2018, before the Ozempic craze was widespread, and it apparently hasn't affected severe obesity, which you'd expect to be the thing it affected the most. So the explanation probably lies elsewhere.
I dunno. Is it possible that we lost weight during the pandemic? I would have thought the opposite, with so many workers hanging around at home where snacks are everywhere. But who knows? Maybe we all just worried the weight off.
¹Older CDC data showed an obesity rate for 2017-18, but that's missing from the newer data, which has only 2017-2020. I'm not sure why. The data is here and here if you're interested.
FWIW, I lost a significant amount of weight when I started working at home instead of in an office, because I was cooking my own meals instead of buying takeout for lunch and often dinner.
There's also less stress eating since one isn't jangled by the commute or feeling time pressure to squeeze in errands. I always felt that the commute was the worst part of my job, and trying to get anything else done only made things worse.
Just as a personal anecdote; I lost ten kilos (I think about 20 pounds in medieval measurements) over New Zealand's national six ~ seven week pandemic lockdown.
Cooking for myself at home was very effective - I spent my days perfecting cooking juicy steaks, with crisp vegetables and air fried chips.
Turns out, that's pretty healthy.
Likewise, I've lost almost ten pounds over the past year with little effort beyond that I've stopped buying milk.
Some great nosh from Walmart,
Doodles Deli Air Dried Beef Headskin Plate with Hair 1kg,
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Doodles-Deli-Air-Dried-Beef-Headskin-Plate-with-Hair-1kg/9780960984?classType=REGULAR&from=/search
Ideal stocking stuffer!
I’ve gained about 7 kilos since moving back to working in the office two days a week. I don’t exercise those days and I eat more food and more unhealthy food.
That's right! It's easier to get some exercise if one doesn't have to commute.
Every over weight modestly wealthy person I know is on Ozempic.
Kevin's enormously helpful in pointing out that almost every item has nothing to do with health, much less healthful living. It's just one more example of our paper of record's coming up with the latest trend, where the only reality is clicks.
So while I hesitate to criticize comments here, they're only the anecdotal evidence the Times loves. (Can we have another focus group of 11 low-information, pro-Trump Americans that prove how Democrats can't manage the economy? Please?) But look: the downturn is almost invisible. And it follows a rise since 2000 of some 39%, which is truly scary. And if that isn't a reason to fear for American health, what is?
People with long covid are likely to lose weight. People hospitalized with covid likely lost weight as well.
A group of high-level managers at the Louisiana Department of Health walked into a Nov. 14 meeting in Baton Rouge expecting to talk about outreach and community events.
Instead, they were told by an assistant secretary in the department and another official that department leadership had a new policy: Advertising or otherwise promoting the COVID, influenza or mpox vaccines, an established practice there — and at most other public health entities in the U.S. — must stop.
😂
Stop going to doctors. Stop taking medicine. That infection? Pray it away! And really… fat people are just miserable idiots.
Paper (2nd link) defines (p 5)
obesity as BMI >= 30
severe obesity as BMI >= 40
Since obesity is NOT defined as 30 =< BMI < 40, it appears that obesity encompasses severe obesity. But I get the feeling from the way the report is written that the authors consider their obesity to be distinct from severe obesity. That would allow for recommending different approaches for dealing with different kinds of obesity, which I presume is better for fashioning policy and public education.
ChatGPT says "obesity typically encompasses severe obesity" What the hell is "typically" doing in that answer? Further down, it contradicted itself.
Looking at other NIH reports, you see "Obesity (including severe obesity)" presumably to distinguish from "obesity" but then the numbers don't add up properly. For other weight categories (healthy, overweight) there are lower and upper bounds. The New England Journal of Medicine considers obesity distinct from severe obesity. It's a mess.
My weight held stable during the pandemic. I lost gym access but continued to exercise by walking/running around the neighborhood.
What other commenters are saying about home-cooked meals makes sense to me. Also, the elimination of commuting time probably freed up a lot of people to exercise more. The pandemic itself also might have made people more health-conscious in general.
I don't know which of those things Kevin thinks aren't health-related. To my way of thinking, "dead" regardless of cause is the worst possible health problem.
There's "dead" and then there's "really most sincerely dead" (Munchkin coroner).
I assumed the decline in "Obesity" with the matching rise in "Super Obesity" was due to folks migrating into the heavier category, not because "Obese" were losing weight and potentially getting healthier.
(On average, of course. Even though many comment threads elsewhere emphasize that it's totally and completely impossible for any person to ever lose weight, so top criticizing!)
Oh, and regarding everyone crowing about their "pandemic weight loss" because they don't eat out every day... How about all those folks who took up "baking their own breads" and (as I heard in conversation between a couple of women) gaining that "Covid 20"?
Thanks, Kevin, for pointing out the number of things in the CDC report that are not health-related. It's been annoying to me for a long time now that the CDC ("Disease" is its middle name, after all) has been sticking its nose into other departments' affairs. The whole brouhaha over whether the CDC should be allowed to study gun violence is BS, because that's none of a health-related organization's business to begin with.
If you get shot, you have a health problem.
The CDC can certainly investigate the medical treatment and recovery from bullet wounds if it wants to.