Average American Woman Weighs As Much As 1960's American Man — Men Have Ballooned As Well: "As you can see from the graph... the average weights of Americans (both sexes) have absolutely ballooned in recent decades. The average weight for women in America is 166.2-pounds, a fraction below the average 1960’s male weight of 166.3-pounds. In this same span of time the weight of the average American male has gone from 166.3-pounds on up to 195.5-pounds.
Assuming the data accounted for outliers, you need to stop for a second and realize that over 50% of dudes in America weigh 195.5-pounds OR MORE. And that’s not even the most shocking part of the data.
Just look at these figures from WaPo’s Wonkblog and realize how big and awesome we Americans are compared to our international brethren:
The average American is 33 pounds heavier than the average Frenchman, 40 pounds heavier than the average Japanese citizen, and a whopping 70 pounds heavier than the average citizen of Bangladesh. To add up to one ton of total mass, it takes 20 Bangladeshis but only 12.2 Americans.
Together, the world’s adult human beings added up to 287 million tons of biomass in 2005, according to the BMC Public Health study. But if every country had the same weight distribution as the U.S., the world would be 58 million tons fatter, an increase of 20 percent.
The study concludes that “tackling population fatness may be critical to world food security and ecological sustainability.”
The average American is 70 POUNDS HEAVIER than the average citizen of Bangladesh?!?!? "
Oddly enough that huge uptick corresponds [though causation is impossible to prove] with the recommendations of the McGovern commission, in line with the recommendations of Ancel Keys re: the lipid hypothesis [around since the Eisenhower years.] Go figure.
United States Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "In January 1977, after having held hearings on the national diet, the McGovern committee issued a new set of nutritional guidelines for Americans... they suggested that Americans eat less fat, less cholesterol, less refined and processed sugars, and more complex carbohydrates and fiber. (Indeed, it was the McGovern report that first used the term complex carbohydrate, denoting "fruit, vegetables and whole-grains". The recommended way of accomplishing this was to eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and less high-fat meat, egg, and dairy products. While many public health officials had said all of this for some time, the committee's issuance of the guidelines gave it higher public profile."