Good News: Americans Are Finally Eating Less

After decades of rising obesity rates and worsening diets, Americans’ eating habits are finally heading in the right direction, according to The New York Times. This goes for most major demographic groups—including higher-and lower-income families, blacks and whites, young and old. In fact, the daily number of calories the average American child consumes has fallen even more—by at least 9 percent. And the most striking shift? The amount of full-calorie soda drunk from the average American has dropped 25 percent since the late 1990s.

This encouraging news, however, does not mean an end to the obesity epidemic; as more than a third of American adults are still considered obese. And experts say we are still eating far too few fruits and vegetables and far too much junk food even if we are eating somewhat less of it.

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This New York Times article attributes the calorie decline to a variety of causes:

A 1999 study by the CDC on Obesity
That year, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a paper that turned into something of a blockbuster. The paper included bright blue maps illustrating worsening obesity rates in the 1980s and 1990s in all 50 states.

Shortly afterward, the surgeon general that summarized the increasing evidence that obesity was a risk factor for several chronic diseases, and said controlling children’s weight should be a priority, to prevent the onset of obesity-related illnesses.

Government pressure
The Affordable Care Act, passed in 2010, required chain restaurants to publish the calorie content of their meals. The federal government has also changed requirements, making school lunches healthier, although the effort has created some backlash.

Several cities have gone further. Philadelphia subsidizes produce purchases for the poor. New York limits the kind of food available in day care centers. Berkeley, Calif., last year became the first city in the United States to tax sugar-sweetened beverages. The evidence for the effectiveness of these interventions is mixed, but their popularity reflects public health officials’ emphasis on diet and obesity.

Anti-soda sentiment
The anti-obesity public health campaigns have focused on one subject more than any other: beverages; and have come out with a slew of anti-soda messages—that have effectively changed public perception.
Beverage companies have reacted by marketing diet drinks and investing heavily in new products, including iced teas and flavored water. “A lot of the changes we are seeing are consumer-driven,” said John Sicher, Beverage Digest’s publisher.

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The biggest caveat to the trend is that it does not appear to extend to the very heaviest Americans. Among the most overweight people, weight and waist circumference have all continued rising in recent years.

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It’s important to note that while these calorie reductions are good news, they alone can’t reverse the obesity epidemic. The NYT article cited a paper by Kevin Hall, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health, that estimated that for Americans to return to the body weights of 1978 by 2020, an average adult would need to reduce calorie consumption by 220 calories a day.

Curated Article from The New York Times