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).
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.
There needs to be a fat tax as well as the existing smoking tax to pay for the medical services, loss of productivity imposed on society.
I stand with my Teabagger brethren and Ron Paul on this issue because these are choices made with consequences.
A doctor’s or pharmaceutical drug company note that medication is being administered is acceptable.
>> 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!