Summary
A new Lancet study reveals nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, a sharp rise from just over half in 1990.
Obesity among adults doubled to over 40%, while rates among girls and women aged 15–24 nearly tripled to 29%.
The study highlights significant health risks, including diabetes, heart disease, and shortened life expectancy, alongside projected medical costs of up to $9.1 trillion over the next decade.
Experts stress obesity’s complex causes—genetic, environmental, and social—and call for structural reforms like food subsidies, taxes on sugary drinks, and expanded treatment access.
Oh, I can totally believe it. Ethiopian food is so damn filling, while not being insanely calorie dense like a lot of what we’re used to in the US. Beans and veggies are filling but not calorie dense, so just adding more of those, even cheap canned ones to your diet can make it much easier to lose weight. I had a buddy that lost almost 30lbs in college literally just by replacing a meal with a can or two of green beans and hot sauce every day for a couple of months. He’s managed to keep it off too, as it helped him realize just how much more his hunger was sated by a couple 60cal cans of beans vs some huge 800 calorie meal from Taco Bell, which was his preferred junk food of choice at the time. Fun fact, it also works extremely well on overweight dogs, minus the hot sauce.