© Rick Wilking / Reuters
The whole world is getting fatter. One 2015 study, from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, found that
an astounding 2 billion people around the globe are either overweight or obese, and that figure just keeps climbing. While the United States has
been unseated as the world's fattest country, we're still home to
13 percent of the world's fat population, despite making up less than
5 percent of the world's total citizenry. (Taken together, China and India, the world's most populous countries with a combined total of
37 percent of the world's people, just pass us with
15 percent of the globe's fat population.)
We've known this for a while, but apparently, we're still just getting fatter.
One study last year found that two-thirds of American adults qualify as either overweight or obese. That's 75 percent of men and 67 percent of women age 25 and up. Conservatives like Rush Limbaugh—who really has no room at all to talk—
complain about efforts like Michelle Obama's "Get Moving" campaign to curb childhood obesity, because every time an American sheds a pound, a bald eagle dies or something. But
the Centers for Disease Control reports that half of American adults have chronic disease related to obesity, such as heart disease and diabetes. Considering that those kinds of health problems
cost taxpayers an estimated $147 billion to $210 billion, you'd think the anti-IRS party would be all for watching our weight.
Comment: One can only hope that karma is real.
Karma? Cop who filmed himself raping women and children found dead in his cell