American Public Exceeds Expectations as Obesity Rates Accelerate

“Nothing exceeds like excess,” as Michelle Pfeifer’s cokehead character in Scarface once observed.

Americans, by and large, agree, it would seem.

Via New York Post:

“Obesity is becoming more prevalent in a growing number of states, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The information shows that in 22 states in 2022 at least 35% of adults were obese — an increase from 19 states in 2021.

The CDC noted that 10 years ago, there were no states that had an adult obesity prevalence at or above 35%.

The data is from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, an interview survey conducted by the CDC and state health departments.”

What’s the CDC – which, let’s remember, is nominally tasked with promoting public health by “controlling disease” rather than its current practical role of shilling the latest Pfizer shots, a distinction easy to forget in the current political climate -- doing to remedy this total shitshow?

Surely the agency, which cares deeply about the welfare of the taxpayers who fund its bloated budget, is up in arms about skyrocketing obesity, arguably the #1 driver of chronic disease known to man.

Via Postgraduate Medical Journal:

“Obesity is at epidemic proportions in the United States and in other developed and developing countries. The prevalence of obesity is increasing not only in adults, but especially among children and adolescents. In the United States in 2003 to 2004, 17.1% of children and adolescents were overweight, and 32.2% of adults were obese. Obesity is a significant risk factor for and contributor to increased morbidity and mortality, most importantly from cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes, but also from cancer and chronic diseases, including osteoarthritis, liver and kidney disease, sleep apnea, and depression.”

Via Frontiers in Endocrinology:

“Obesity significantly increases the risk of severity and mortality in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Therefore, the inclusion of obesity or surrogate body mass index in prognostic scores and streamlining the management strategy and treatment guidelines to account for the impact of obesity would be vital to improving patient outcomes in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Our findings also serve as a call for the scientific community to delve further into its pathophysiology and identify potential pharmacological targets, since COVID-19 is an ever-evolving disease. Finally, this information must be disseminated to the general public to intensify the primary prevention of obesity.”

It must be tackling this issue head-on.

Right?

You’ll be shocked to learn that, actually, it’s attempting a technocratic re-jiggering of the language we use to describe human-walrus hybrids for the sake of putting “people first.”

From the CDC report:

“We encourage the use of person-first language (e.g., “adults with obesity” or “20% of children ages 12–19 have obesity” and not “obese adults” nor “20% of children are obese”) when discussing topics like obesity and other chronic diseases, as well as respectful images.”

George Carlin had some thoughts back in the day about:

a.) America’s extraordinary collective waistline and the causal mechanisms behind it and;

b.) the phenomenon of “soft language” such as forcing a semantical shift to “adults with obesity” from “obese adults.”

“You know what the national emblem of this country ought to be? A big bowl of macaroni and cheese. A BIG BOWL. Because everything in this country is king-size. King size, extra large and SUPER JUMBO. Especially the fucking people! Have you seen some of the people in this country? Have you taken a good look at some of these big, fat motherfuckers walking around? Big, fat motherfuckers. Oh, my God. Huge piles of redundant protoplasm lumbering through the malls like a fleet of interstate buses. The people in this country are immense. Massive bellies. Monstrous thighs and big, fat fucking asses. And if you stand there for a minute and you look at one of them, you’ll look at one of them and you begin to wonder, How does this woman take a shit? How does she shit? And even more frightening, How does she wipe her ass? Can she even locate her asshole? She must require assistance. Are paramedics trained in this field? And standing right next to her. Of course. With a plate full of nachos and a mouthful of pie is her clueless fucking husband Joe Six Pack. With his monstrous swollen beer belly hanging dangerously out over his belt buckle. This guy ain’t seen his dick since the Nixon administration. And if you stand there and you look at the two of them. You begin to wonder to yourself, Do these people fuck? Is this man actually capable of fucking this woman? It doesn’t seem structurally possible that these two people could achieve penetration. Maybe they’re in that “Cirque du Soleil” or something. I’m telling you the people in this country – every one of them – is 50 pounds overweight. They are GARGANTUAN.”

“I don’t like words that hide the truth. I don’t like words that conceal reality. I don’t like euphemisms or euphemistic language. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. Because Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality… So they invent a kind of a soft language… and it gets worse with every generation.”

Could he have hit the nail much harder on the head?

Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.

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