As is so often the case, I blame cars.
It is no coincidence that the trend, begun in the post-war years and reaching its full destructive flower in the 80s and 90s, of planning for car-dependent sprawl where walking or other forms of active transportation are discouraged and no longer let you do anything useful or necessary, has coincided with increased obesity rates.
Obviously I don't blame them 100 percent, that would be rather more hyperbolic hedgehog-ish than is really warranted. But if we're going to look at structural factors- and the shape of the data indicates that we must- our built environment shouldn't be ignored in favor of solely focusing on the food industry.
I don't drive. I walk most everywhere within the city. I don't bother to take public transportation because the buses in this city are horrible.
I'm over 300lbs.
Though my weight is down compared to this time last year.
Obviously I'm speaking in the aggregate and there are many, many people for whom this isn't true. There are people who eat nothing but junk food and walk absolutely nowhere who have the lucky genes and get to be skinny. And it sounds like you're doing everything right and still end up the other way. Which is an important and true point that the HAES folks make- there is plenty of genetic variation between people and healthy habits are more important than an out-of-context number on the scale.
My point is simply that an active lifestyle is healthier, and generally correlated with lower weight, and most people do realize that. But not everyone takes it a step further and understands that our built environment has an important effect on whether people are able to have that active lifestyle or not (without making it a chore/luxury good available primarily to those with free time and the money for gym memberships).
Well, we know nothing about the amount of calories he consumes. I know a guy who's pretty active, goes skiing in the weekends, etc. Yet he is still very much overweight, because he eats a heck of a lot. Being physcally active won't keep you from being overweight by itself, though it obviously helps.
And of course, those who eat a lot of junk food but still stay skinny generally consume less calories from other sources.
It also depend on a few other factors, thin people eating a lot of junk food is also usual rather young, most of them develop a beer gut when they become older. Other factor are how you body is build, some people can carry extra weight and it's hard to see. Of course at last there the last factor people can be obese on a BMI scale and in reality just having extra muscles. Other people who get little excessise can have a correct BMI and look overweight.
Poll
