The Average American Woman Now Weighs as Much as the Average 1960s Man!

With all the low fat, low carb and diet products out there today, as well as all of the weight loss books and weight loss programs available, why do Americans keep on getting heavier?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the average American woman now weighs 166.2 pounds, which is almost exactly as much as the average American man weighed in the early 1960s. American men are not doing much better. Over the same time period, American men gained nearly 30 pounds, from 166.3 pounds in the 60s to 195.5 pounds today!

The overall percentage of weight gain since 1960 is slightly greater for women, at 18.5%, as compared to 17.6% for men.

There are a number of factors that are to blame:

1. We are eating less healthy food. Less of the foods that we eat is home cooked foods and home prepared foods. We are eating more processed foods and fast foods.

2. We are eating more total calories. Many of those calories are empty calories that are high is sugar and high fructose corn syrup, which become addictive.

3. People are consuming too many artificial sweeteners that actually stimulate the appetite to eat more, not less.

4. People are more sedentary and less active. Too much time is spent in front of screens and not moving around. Motion is life and life is motion.
According to a study published in 2012 in the journal BMC Public Health, Americans are now the world’s third-heaviest people, behind only the Pacific island nations of Tonga and Micronesia. The study concludes that “Tackling population fatness may be critical to world food security and ecological sustainability.”

The average American is 33 pounds heavier than the average Frenchman, 40 pounds heavier than the average Japanese citizen and 70 pounds heavier than the average citizen of Bangladesh.

Being overweight contributes to a higher probability of diabetes, stroke, heart attack and cancer. It is not a coincidence that those are also the leading causes of death.

What is the Answer?

The solution is a simple, but it takes an effort to shop for and to prepare healthy foods as well as to get active and stay active.

How many people know this, but are doing nothing about it? It is a lot easier to maintain good health than it is to regain your health once it is lost!

There is no better day to start than today! After all, tomorrow is always a day away!

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