0.078%!!!! 2%!!! How much more clear can they be about the reason why Americans are so fat! An obvious implication is that if you never smoked, you will be the fattest, right? Which explains the ‘epidemic’ of fat kids! The statistics don’t lie!!!
New slogan: Light Up to Lighten Up!
There are many reasons behind the doubling of America’s obesity rate over the past 25 years. Foodstamp use is higher, jobs have become more sedentary, populations are more sprawled, etc.
But the biggest factor is the decline in smoking, according to a controversial new paper from NBER.
Professors Charles Baum and Shin-Yi Chou found that smokers were 0.078% less likely to be obese. The declining use of cigarettes explains 2% of the increase in obesity (which is a low number but larger than any other factor).
Well… I had a non-insulin dependent diabetic aunt who started gaining weight when she stopped smoking. Her doctor actually told her to start smoking again or, if she gained too much weight, he would put her on insulin!
I gained 30 pounds when I quit smoking. No joke.
It’s a BS excuse. If you substitute smoking with activity, which you can now do because you actually have energy. You will lose weight.
It’s kind of amazing actually.
.078%? Did no one stop to ask about the statistics? What journal published this? How did it pass peer review? There is other evidence to support this view, so it sounds like they had their conclusions made up before they started the research. For that matter the same thing happened when they ‘concluded’ second hand smoke causes cancer. They had the regulations in place even before the study was done, and the study results didn’t match, but they reported that their was such a link.
What the phuk is NBER ? National Betterment Endowment for R J Reynolds ??
And the fact that 0.078% is the largest single factor should give a clue that nobody knows.
I’d say that the politically correctness movement, which makes it taboo to ridicule or shun 500 pound human beings is responsible for a larger (pardon the pun) portion of the obesity epidemic than less smoking.
States in the South East have higher rates of both smoking AND obesity.
QED
LS/MFT
So fucking what?
Although quitting smoking can suppress metabolism, people who smoke probably make other choices for their lifestyles that are equally unhealthful, namely, minimum exercise and excessive processed foods. When one quits their vice, they often find other crutches to take its place, or just lean on the others they’ve already established a little more heavily. For many it becomes junk food. I read something somewhere recently that said it best: it’s the difference between causation and correlation, rendering this “statistic” as precious. THX, JCD!
when you try to quit an oral habit like smoking, people often replace it with eating, since eating is done orally, so it’s a natural go-to when trying to kick smoking. They don’t call it going “cold turkey” for nothing.
The reason why america is fat is high fructose corn syrup. Plain and simple as that. We didn’t have a fat epidemic before HFCS was subsidized prior to the 1980s. Thank you FDA for looking out for us, douchebags!
Admit it, we are all fucked in the long run.
When you stop smoking, chew lots of gum. It will keep your mouth busy until your metabolism adjusts.
I have two points to make:
Primo: I used to smoke, cigars.
I quit years ago and didn’t suffer the modern equivalent to the bends because the smoke particles in a cigar (which will go out if you don’t puff constantly, unlike cigarettes,) are much larger than those in cigarettes.
They don’t penetrate in the alveoli the way the crap from a cigarette do.
Being Canadian I can get real Cuba cigars and still partake from time to time.
Even post-Castro Dominican cigars are better for you than those Virginia floor sweepings which are engineered to be addictive and cheap as fuck for machines to manufacture. (Oh, and they give you umpteen kinds of cancer too.)
American cigarettes are the worst offenders because not only do they taste like floor sweepings but they are absolutely chock full of burnable chemicals which are killing smokers.
Secundo: I used to eat the USDA and FDA approved American diet.
I quit eating that crap in 1997 and lost 50 pounds without suffering from hunger, and I also stopped needing antacids, simply by switching to an all natural diet. (Know why you’re popping down Alka-Seltzer, Andrews Antacid, Brioschi, Equate, Gaviscon, Maalox, Milk of Magnesia, Pepto-Bismol, Rennie, Rolaids, Tums, Mylanta, Eno, Gelusil, Alusil? Its because you’re eating shit.)
I am now eating what I want but I have to know whee it came from and it has to be the food I want, not a fuckin’ chemical brew of unpronounceable chemicals. (If I can’t pronounce it, I ain’t putting it in my mouth period…)
The USDA and the FDA are not there for you!
They are there for big agra. You cant sue them, ever, even if you can prove malfeasance, just as long as they were following the guidelines. Eat at your own peril!
And that crap about there’ll never be enough farm land to feed everybody if we all switch to natural foods is just that, crap.
This country has lots of productive land.
You’re eating corn based or processed everything because the agribusiness is making lots more money selling the incredible productivity per acre of this country overseas. (The best rice in this country is grown for export to Japanese specifications in California. [Its even cheaper that the crap Americans get from Uncle Ben’s or from Texas.])
Agribusiness can’t justify feed lots and monoculture farms except for Americans who’ll eat absolute shit grown on the worst, most marginal lands.
What do you do when you’re wrong and you fucking know it? Make being right illegal or make it look too expensive… Americans are cheap idiots. If they swallow this crap, they’ll even swallow the fabricated need for it; along with the antacids needed to stop their heartburn from filling their mouthes with what the rest of the world considers offal.
I blame liquid calories – Big Gulps, Frappuccinos, energy drinks etc.
OK,, I admit, it’s totally anecdotal. But start watching super obese people on the street and notice how many are carrying a big drink.
A lot of interesting comments. Thoroughly enjoyed reading them. But has anyone really considered the significant and long term weight loss advantages of intestinal parasites?
msbpodcast said “Secundo: I used to eat the USDA and FDA approved American diet.”
Italian and American standards? Must be from Toronto.
Low-tar, low-nicotine food is the answer.
In addition to high calorie snacks, you can also add computers, cellphones, TVs and video games to the obesity equation.
#5 said “I’d say that the politically correctness movement, which makes it taboo to ridicule or shun 500 pound human beings is responsible for a larger (pardon the pun) portion of the obesity epidemic than less smoking.”
What planet do you live on? The Obese have been victimized by jerks like you for decades, never once heard of a PC movement to the contrary. Where do you get off thinking that not being a disrespectful jag-off to the obese is somehow political correctness.
and yeah, I was, spent 3 years losing the weight, no thanks to butt-sucks like you.
Damn..Howd they get my Pic on here, must have hacked into my phone, aww well..”Thin is in, but fat is where it’s at”
Correlation does not imply causation; I can say that since the 1950s, both the atmospheric CO2 level and obesity levels have increased sharply. Therefore, atmospheric CO2 causes obesity. Simply not true!
#19. Congratulations! You make yourself into a respectable human being.
I lost 50 lbs about 14 years ago because I wanted sex. It stuck. About a year ago, I stopped smoking, and I allowed myself 5 lbs. of weight gain. Neither was easy, and both continue to require constant vigilance. But they are worth it. Anyone can do it if they stop whining and get their head out of their ass.
#22 I was a respectable human-being before I lost the weight. You lose 50lbs and you think you know all about weight loss and the mind of a morbidly obese person, try loosing 300lbs like me. You don’t know what its like to be entombed in your own flesh. You think that the morbidly obese are whiners with there heads up their asses. You know nothing, stop projecting your own mental problems onto others. I’ve met people who weigh far more than I did, they are good people with serious problems, they don’t need haters like you who make themselves fell better by ridiculing or shunning them. You are pitiful and deserve no respect.
According to C. Evertt Koop (former Surgeon General) the average weight for ceasing to smoke was seven pounds. Even if weight gain is a concern, he said one would have to put on one hundred pounds to equal the health risks of smoking.
The percentage in this article is negligible.
We all know that obese people have bigger turds and produce more of them. Has anyone studied the cost in taxpayer dollars to increase the capacity of municipal sewage systems to handle the increased volume?
When I quit smoking I weighed 170. Now I’m 220. I don’t blame it on not smoking, I blame it on eating too much and being lazy.
>> spsffan said,
>> Anyone can do it if they stop whining and get their head out of their ass.
If anyone can do it, more people would. Instead, the vast majority of diets fail over time.
And don’t claim the dieters aren’t trying! Half the people I know are trying to diet, yet still fail.
They are working-out more, eating less or differently. Spending vast amounts of money. Giving up whole categories of food.
It hardly ever works.
I’m glad you kept the weight off but you are in minority so anomalous that your personal victory is irrelevant to the larger issue.
At some point, we have to accept that this isn’t a will-power or moral failing issue and try to identify and address the real causes of obesity.
BigBoyBC,
How much did you lose, and how long have you kept it off? The whole 300 pounds or part of it?
What worked for you?
I stopped smoking 27 years ago. The immediate effect was nearly instant better breathing, better social life and the whopping gain of four pounds that have refused to go away.
So, yes, obesity is the product of quitting cigarettes.
Drink plenty of water when you’ve elected to stop smoking. Replacing smoking with eating, unless what you consume id low calorie like carrots, celery, and other vegetables as snacks, is a poor choice. Many foods, contain unnecessary amounts of sugar, even juices have extra amounts of sugar and sodium…that’s why Americans are fat. Drink water!