If you've never experienced the CDC's Evolving Map of Obesity Rates, then do yourself a favor and check it out. The graphs are simple: a color-coded maps that get updated every year. Yet the ugly truth revealed is harrowing: Obesity rates that would have been considered unimaginably high as recently as the 80s would now be considered unattainably low. Each year the situation deteriorates. We are barreling headfirst into a health nightmare. 2008 was the worse year on record with 6 states having obesity rates above 30%.
The CDC relies on phone interviews for data because they are cheap. However, when interviewed over the phone, people systematically under report their weight. A study at Harvard estimated this bias and attempted to correct for it in the data. Corrected estimates of obesity are 8% (for men) to 15% (for women) higher than the obesity rates calculated from self-reported weight.
Applying these corrections, we easily determine that well over a third of our adult population is obese. And it just keeps getting worse and worse.
Why? The New Yorker's Elizabeth Kolbert considers some theories in a recent article. While Kolbert's article is valuable because it summarizes many interrelated factors, it is a bit unsatisfying because doesn't it present a unified theory. And Kolbert doesn't suggest what, if anything, could stop the consumerist juggernaut that gets larger and larger every yeat.
