Why are we so fat?

[substitute]

Because of this and this.

Courtesy the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, your guide to why you aren’t feeling so hot.

Comments

[flipzagging.livejournal.com]

Funny how people inactivity peaks in 1998, and then starts trending down.

Better economy, more leisure?

[fattmike.livejournal.com]

I'm not fat. I'm undertall, but undertallmike was already taken.

Re:

[shmivejournal.livejournal.com]

... the internet

The old fogies will kick your ass

[vegemitelover.livejournal.com]

According to the chart though, old people (60+) look like they are attempting to make up for their lazy offspring... like tenfold.

Re: The old fogies will kick your ass

[vegemitelover.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Now that I think of it more, lazy people probably stay lazy. I wonder if statisical increase in activity is simply due to the fact that the people that have been active are the last ones to croak.

Re: The old fogies will kick your ass

[halfjack.livejournal.com]

Uh oh, we have a hypothesis loop.

Re:

[halfjack.livejournal.com]

Actually if you plot the data with error bars, you can draw a horizontal line through it (at least for the few sets I did) until 2001, and in 2001 the question changed significantly in a way that would tend to bring the numbers down.

I conclude that no interesting conclusions about trends can be drawn from this data.

Re:

[flipzagging.livejournal.com]

At first I thought you were right but the data about older women (at least) seems to be clearer, although the trend starts much earlier.

My mother worked a lot in social services for the elderly. My impression is that at least in our corner of the world, people have paid a lot more attention to organizing seniors in physical activity lately.

Re:

[halfjack.livejournal.com]

Yeah I didn't plot any of the older data sets and just looking at them I can see that there is probably some significance in there, both in men and women. The change in question in 2001 is disappointing though -- you almost have to throw out the 2001 and 2002 data because of it.