Obviously Obese Food Statistics – Bariatric Edition

Why are we overweight and obese today?
Why are we gaining weight at an alarming rate?
After bariatric surgery, and once you have lost all the weight, how can you ensure that you will keep it off?

I think that the most important thing that we need to understand is how we gained the weight in the first place.

If we can learn through our errors, we can ensure that we never go back to that place again.

So what was it in the first place that made us gain too much weight?

Since 1970, obesity has tripled in adults and almost tripled in children.  The answer lies in our food statistics.  We cannot ignore the numbers that so obviously contain our answers.

Check out this data.  It is based in America from 2014.  It is what an average American consumes per day.  Here is the link for your own research. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-consumption-and-nutrient-intakes/

Let’s see if we can figure this out together.

• Vegetables.  An average American consumes 1.6 cups of vegetables per day.
• Protein.  An average American consumes 200 grams or 7.1 ounces per day.
• Fat.  An average American consumes 63 grams or 2.2 ounces per day.
• Grains.  An average American consumes 1/2 a pound per day or 175 lbs per year.
• Sugar.  An average American consumes 23 teaspoons per day or 131 lbs per year.

What do you think about these numbers?

Here are some things that I thought right away after reading the data. It makes so much sense why obesity is so high and on the rise.  It is what we are eating.

• Vegetables – it’s pretty obvious that when we talk about vegetables, we need to be consuming a lot more.  The recommended amount is 7 to 10 cups per day.
• Fat – The amount we are consuming is not unreasonable but we are consuming too much vegetable oils.  These are oils such as soy, canola, corn – GMO.  This is the problem.  We need to be eating more healthy fat and less of these unhealthy oils.
• Grains – 1/2 a pound per day of grains is way too much.  A lot of the grains we are consuming are refined grains. This raises sugar and insulin levels and makes it very difficult to lose weight.
• Sugar – 23 teaspoons of added sugar per day is very excessive.  Less than one teaspoon per day is what is considered acceptable. 

It is obvious to me what is causing rising rates of obesity.

We need to increase the vegetables in our diet, decrease vegetable oil and drastically reduce grains and sugar.  If we did this the obesity epidemic would take care of itself.

Sugar and grains are the issues today.  Let’s ensure ourselves long term bariatric success and try to make the changes that we need to make to protect ourselves from obesity and obesity-related illnesses.