According to a new study, 42 percent of American adults will be obese by the year 2030. All this week, The Takeaway looks at this prediction with a wide range of specialists — from city planners to coffin makers to mathematicians to science writer Michael Moyer. Today, the conversation continues with you, our listeners. Throughout the week, you’ve been sharing your own stories of weight loss and body image. John Manrique is a Takeaway listener who lost over 70 pounds three years ago and has kept it off. He wrote a book about his journey called “Hey Fat Ass: A Guy’s Guide to Losing Weight and Getting Right.” Steven Velazquez is a Takeaway listener who considers himself “fat and fit,” or, depending on the day, “pleasantly plump and fit.” He works out regularly and he thinks our society fixates way too much on the numbers on the scale.
According to a new study, 42 percent of American adults will be obese by the year 2030. And all this week, The Takeaway looks at that prediction with people we might not normally think of as obesity specialists — from city planners to coffin makers to our guest yesterday, a mathematician with the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Kidney Diseases named Dr. Carson Chow. Today, the conversation continues with Michael Moyer, senior editor at Scientific American. Moyer believes that in order to combat America’s obesity epidemic, the answer isn’t mere math equations. As he sees it, things are more complicated than simply calories in versus calories out.
A new study predicts that 42 percent of American adults will be obese by 2030. And all this week we’re looking at that prediction with people we might not normally think of as obesity specialists — from city planners to coffin makers. Today, we’re continuing the conversation with another unexpected obesity expert: a mathematician. Dr. Carson Chow is a mathematician and investigator with the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Kidney Diseases who specializes in obesity.
Yesterday, we discussed a new study that predicts 42 percent of American adults will be obese by 2030. We're continuing that conversation today, with a look at race, weight, and commonly held misconceptions. For example, it’s widely believed that in America, Asians are rarely overweight, and more likely to be healthy as a result of that. It’s also widely believed that black people are more likely than other groups to have a positive body image regardless of their size. In fact, the picture is much more complicated. Dr. William Hsu is the co-director of the Asian American Diabetes Initiative at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, Massachusetts. And Dr. Denise Wilfley is the director of the Weight Management and Eating Disorders Program Washington University in St. Louis.
A new study predicts that 42 percent of American adults will be obese — a category beyond overweight — by the year 2030. Keith Davis is working to accommodate America's bigger, more obese future. He's the owner and operator of Goliath Coffins, a company that makes caskets for the morbidly obese. Jen Petersen is an urban sociologist and Principal of Petersen consulting. She worked on the Living Streets Project in Los Angeles which was focused on improving public health through city planning.