Heavier passengers on planes mean new safety limits for airlines

Re:Heavier passengers on planes mean new safety limits for a... by tzs on Thursday June 10, 2021 @01:51AM (#27457204)

It's more widespread than the USA. People have gotten noticeably heavier in the last ~50 years pretty much everywhere that isn't Asia or the middle latitudes of Africa [1].

(And actually, they have also gotten noticeably heavier in Asia and Africa, too, but because they started with much lower obesity rates, it just isn't as noticeable. For example in 1975 14% of Japanese were overweight, compared to 47% US. By 2013 that was 28% Japan, 72% US).

There's a nice interactive graph on the linked page around 2/3 or so down that lets you look at the growth over time for assorted countries.

This should be pretty alarming, because it indicates that whatever is leading to soaring obesity in the US quite possibly is not something specifically that we in the US are doing wrong in our eating or exercise choices and habits.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/obesity

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Re:Heavier passengers on planes mean new safety limits for a... by 1_player on Thursday June 10, 2021 @01:57AM (#27457245)

Well, it's definitely correlated with the time we've decided that "fat is bad, eat low fat for better health" that we've gone from obesity being a rare metabolic syndrome to a widespread epidemic. And the increased reliance on processed food, which is not only the very maligned ultra palatable junk food, but processed food in general.

Of course it's more complicated than that, studies are moving in that direction but it's going to be 50 more years since updated dietary guidelines become common (grandma's) knowledge.

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Re:Heavier passengers on planes mean new safety limits for a... by alkonaut on Thursday June 10, 2021 @11:27AM (#27461825)

There are some things like urban planning (for walkability/bikes) that I think adds to the problem in the US but isn’t such a problem elsewhere. It’s by no means unique to the US but it’s one thing that adds to it.

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