Looking at my country (Canada) I see a flattening of the curve since 2010. I am also surprised to see the US having so much more obesity and the curve flattened less... We eat pretty much the same foods. Is it because health care systems are so different? We burn more energy in Canada because of the cold? (ha) Call me curious...
Yea unfortunately these country level numbers (and BMI inherently) are super vague :) Could be anything. Cold, immigration, maybe Canada is younger, maybe Canada didn't change its food quite as much..
But interesting how it used to be much closer in 1990 than it is now.
Maybe they only collected 2 points and drew a straight line through it? Somebody commented how North Korea looks like somebody did it w/ an exponential function, it's way too smooth. Obv all these should come with a huge grain of salt..
Somebody suggested that maybe France (& Spain?) went slightly down because they had lots of immigration from thinner countries? That could (temporarily?) negate a trend up.
Or maybe there is really a peak obesity depending on your country.
I agree that we should add considerable amounts of salt to our conclusions.
But results like France are hard to explain away.
I don't think immigration can explain why they got thinner.
I haven't doubled checked this numbers but:
In France, first-generation immigrants (including undocumented) make up about 11% of the population; in the U.S., it’s around 17.5%.
If immigration alone led to a leaner population, the U.S. would show the same trend. Plus, France’s second-gen immigrant population is about 9–10%, similar to the U.S. (~11–12%).
So unless French immigrants are uniquely lean and stay that way across generations, immigration isn’t a strong explanation for why France is getting leaner and the US fatter.
But I agree to be cautious in the conclusions, France fits almost too perfectly in the modern PUFA theory.
We went from 18% to 34% obesity in the same time they went from 11% to 13% (1990 to 2005, when they peaked).
So it could be that if you get a bunch of younger and/or leaner immigrants, it can only reduce the trend by so much, and if your trend is already nearly plateaued, it can actually push it down. The U.S. trend seems to have slowed down a little bit at the same time, but not nearly enough to push it back down.
That said I have no clue if it's actually due to immigration. It's just a thing to keep in mind with these by-country level data sets, that a country can change over time.
Looking at a random "France median age over time" graph I found, they don't seem to have gotten younger around that time. If anything, they aged rapidly. So no clue.
Regarding the decreased obesity in Venezuela. Nationalizing most everything in massive socialism. This started in the mid 19's but turbocharged into the 2024's and resulted in a "famine" that is still going on . Good way to put the brakes on obesity.
Love this! Let me know if you want help assembling a similar database of seed oil “disappearance”. I know how to use github but know nothing about web dev, unfortunately.
Ok. I’m traveling this week but will reach out later this month. (Probably I will create a standalone GitHub repo so that I can show all of my data manipulation work; then you can just grab the final csv from there.)
Yea why not. Since I already have the library (VegaLite) wired up, adding another data set should be pretty easy. Just point me to the data set :) This one was a CSV but pretty much any common format should work.
Sir, you are AWESOME.
Looking at my country (Canada) I see a flattening of the curve since 2010. I am also surprised to see the US having so much more obesity and the curve flattened less... We eat pretty much the same foods. Is it because health care systems are so different? We burn more energy in Canada because of the cold? (ha) Call me curious...
Yea unfortunately these country level numbers (and BMI inherently) are super vague :) Could be anything. Cold, immigration, maybe Canada is younger, maybe Canada didn't change its food quite as much..
But interesting how it used to be much closer in 1990 than it is now.
Just keep on traditional foods.......like imported soy oil etc.
4 interesting countries:
1. Mexico is a straight diagonal line. No curve. Weird.
2. United Arab Emirates has a dip in obesity. Has that ever happened in another country?
3. Netherlands seems to have done something so they are getting fatter way slower.
4. Venezuela. The most interesting one imo.
It's the first country that seems to have a *negative* tendency?
It seems like they reached their peak obesity and have come down. Super interesting.
Edit: France has gotten leaner. That's insane.
Maybe they only collected 2 points and drew a straight line through it? Somebody commented how North Korea looks like somebody did it w/ an exponential function, it's way too smooth. Obv all these should come with a huge grain of salt..
Somebody suggested that maybe France (& Spain?) went slightly down because they had lots of immigration from thinner countries? That could (temporarily?) negate a trend up.
Or maybe there is really a peak obesity depending on your country.
I agree that we should add considerable amounts of salt to our conclusions.
But results like France are hard to explain away.
I don't think immigration can explain why they got thinner.
I haven't doubled checked this numbers but:
In France, first-generation immigrants (including undocumented) make up about 11% of the population; in the U.S., it’s around 17.5%.
If immigration alone led to a leaner population, the U.S. would show the same trend. Plus, France’s second-gen immigrant population is about 9–10%, similar to the U.S. (~11–12%).
So unless French immigrants are uniquely lean and stay that way across generations, immigration isn’t a strong explanation for why France is getting leaner and the US fatter.
But I agree to be cautious in the conclusions, France fits almost too perfectly in the modern PUFA theory.
Yea it's of course speculation.
If you compare France and the U.S., our rate of gain was much higher than theirs: https://macros.exfatloss.com/obesity-countries?countries=USA%2CFRA&fixed_scale=false
We went from 18% to 34% obesity in the same time they went from 11% to 13% (1990 to 2005, when they peaked).
So it could be that if you get a bunch of younger and/or leaner immigrants, it can only reduce the trend by so much, and if your trend is already nearly plateaued, it can actually push it down. The U.S. trend seems to have slowed down a little bit at the same time, but not nearly enough to push it back down.
That said I have no clue if it's actually due to immigration. It's just a thing to keep in mind with these by-country level data sets, that a country can change over time.
Looking at a random "France median age over time" graph I found, they don't seem to have gotten younger around that time. If anything, they aged rapidly. So no clue.
Maybe we should go there and find out :)
Venezuela went through a sort of famine when their economy collapsed (they import a lot of their food), it’s an outlier.
The we should have seen a dip, not trend reversal.
Scratch that. France has gotten LEANER? Mmmmm should we just eat baguettes all day?
I'm for that! Slathered with butter. Consider croissants. However, my wife and I made croissants from scratch. I loved it. I also blown off the scale.
Errata: I meant mid 90's . Not 19's.
Regarding the decreased obesity in Venezuela. Nationalizing most everything in massive socialism. This started in the mid 19's but turbocharged into the 2024's and resulted in a "famine" that is still going on . Good way to put the brakes on obesity.
Love this! Let me know if you want help assembling a similar database of seed oil “disappearance”. I know how to use github but know nothing about web dev, unfortunately.
Ok. I’m traveling this week but will reach out later this month. (Probably I will create a standalone GitHub repo so that I can show all of my data manipulation work; then you can just grab the final csv from there.)
Yea why not. Since I already have the library (VegaLite) wired up, adding another data set should be pretty easy. Just point me to the data set :) This one was a CSV but pretty much any common format should work.
Very interesting. I have thought about this too due to travel and working abroad. Does WHO have a tool like this?
If so I haven't seen it, that's why I made this.