White Women Are Getting Fatter Too

Lardass of the Blogosphere is butthurt by all the anti-fat realtalk in the free speech zone, and this resentment fuels the obstinacy with which he holds to wrong-headed opinions about obesity. His latest is a howler:

In the comments, there is often talk about the fattening of America, yet I hardly see any fat white people in Manhattan. Thus I came up with the theory, this morning, that thin people are moving to Manhattan and other thin cities such as Washington, Boston, and San Francisco/Silicon Valley, leaving the fat people behind in the rest of the country. Those readers who live in the rest of the country are, therefore, getting the false impression that the population as a whole, is fatter than it really is.

Or that, you know, the skinny people living in the pricey coastal cities are getting the false impression that the population as a whole is skinnier than it really is.

LotB is called out on his ignorance of CDC obesity data by one of his commenters, which he reacts to by attempting a semantic evasion.

Those [CDC obesity] statistics are not broken down by race. New York has plenty of overweight blacks and Hispanics.

Here is the CDC obesity data for white women (the data most pertinent to the functioning of a healthy sexual market):

Between 1988–1994 and 2007–2008, the prevalence of obesity among women increased (Figure 4):
•    From 22.9% to 33.0% among non-Hispanic white women.

Yes, there are disproportionately more fat black and amerindian women, but white women are getting FATTER too. LotB is simply mistaken in his pro-fatass beliefs. For shits and giggles, here’s the obesity rate in the United States in 1960 versus the obesity rate in 2008:

Obese (BMI ≥ 30)
1960-1962: 13.4%
2007-2008: 34.3%

Extreme Obesity (BMI ≥ 40):
1960-1962: 0.9%
2007-2008: 6.0%

Environmental shocks.

Obesity and extreme obesity are the two most revolting categories of fatness. Mere overweight has gone up a couple percentage points since 1960. None of the trends are good, however a few extra pounds on a man won’t adversely affect his romantic prospects like similar extra weight on a woman would affect hers.

These numbers are even worse than they appear, because the obesity categories are based on renormed standards. The 1959 Met Life insurance tables are truer standards of ideal weight, because they were devised before American “girth inflation” became necessary to spare the feelings of chubsters like, I would bet good money, those of LotB’s.