Yes, I agree that it’s ridiculous to assume that all members of any racial or ethnic group share essentially identical genetic backgrounds, but you can’t say that food doesn’t account for 300 “extra” lbs. and then turn around and say that genetics doesn’t, either. I certainly believe that chemicals, preservatives, and other food additives wreck havoc in our bodies, but the causes of obesity are far more complex than any single thing that’s been mentioned here.

BTW, weight is not a genetic disease. It’s tiresome to keep hearing fatness pathologized.

You’d be amazed at how provincial vaccination scares are.

And lifespan and health outcomes have been shown to be less about access than about the political structure. Countries with the largest discrepancy between the rich and the poor have the worst health outcomes.

ORLY? As opposed to, say, access to health services? Because, dude, Bangladesh here isn’t exactly on EU levels of wellbeing, and all those African countries in shades of blue should be better off than the USA. Yemen and India would be at around the same level of health outcomes as Portugal, too.

Fat is a great example of this. It represents gluttony and sloth. Because we knew fat was bad for you long before we started to research it, we disregard research that does not confirm what we already know. I have been trying to research the history of dieting. Now I don’t know how long the world has been dieting but I do know that Americans have been dieting since the beginning. Even during the depression. Restricting yourself from bodily pleasures was very important to the Puritans. I think it is funny that Mediterranean diet is the healthiest. Yet there are fat people there. And they eat fat, and meat. Most likely they are getting enough of something healthy that other countries are not. But protestants are so used to thinking in terms of restriction, that we automatically assume the problem is too much of something unhealthy rather than not enough of something healthy. That’s all I know.

And lifespan and health outcomes have been shown to be less about access than about the political structure. Countries with the largest discrepancy between the rich and the poor have the worst health outcomes.

However, even the people who live here are not really sure about it – and I think that’s why your last statement bothers me as being glib.

California has some of the most polluted cities in the US…but it’s still got one of the higher life expectancies according to the graph. I also doubt that the average person in Hawaii gets substantially more sun than someone in say, Florida, or Colorado. It’s not like we fish and surf shirtless all day.

re: calculating life expectancy, that’s a good point that decreasing infant mortality rates really skew the data, lead to erroneous interpretations of what “avg lifespan” really means, and probably account for much in the rapid rise of the numbers over the years. However, it may hide other smaller (but not insignificant!) trends that may or may not be attributable to antibiotics and vaccinations. My point is that we can’t make a decent guess, or arguments, without more data.

I do agree that the title of that particular map graph looks silly, as the graph does nothing to support the argument. A graph of average lifespan over the years would have been much more appropriate (although not necessarily more convincing).

What assumptions regarding fat and health are based on religious ideology?

This is really interesting to me, and I’d love to learn what you know.