Losing weight should be our New Year’s resolution
Tom Joyce
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About a third of the public set New Year’s resolutions for 2024, according to YouGov. People have set various goals, including saving money, traveling, pursuing a new hobby, getting a new job, spending more time with family, and losing weight, among other ambitions.
Given how fat America has become, most should make losing weight one of their New Year’s resolutions.
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Almost three-quarters, 73.6%, of adults 20 and older are either overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Plus, nearly 42% of Americans are either obese or morbidly obese, according to the data.
Excess weight is a problem for all people, not just those experiencing it.
Obesity created $173 billion in medical costs in 2019, according to the CDC. It also increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer. Additionally, obesity worsened the coronavirus pandemic in the United States and is part of the reason why the country has had more than 1.1 million coronavirus deaths. Nearly 80% of hospitalized coronavirus patients were either overweight or obese, according to the CDC.
These weight problems are also partially why America has a lower life expectancy than most highly developed countries.
The U.S. had an average life expectancy of 77.5 years in 2022, according to the CDC. It was a lower rate than healthier highly developed countries, such as South Korea (83.21 years), Japan (84.79 years), and Singapore (83.80 years), which have obesity rates below 10%.
Obesity, sadly, kills people — including body positivity influencers and advocates. For example, 28-year-old Brittany Sauer, a TikToker, died in 2022 at 28 years old due to various health problems. In one of her final videos, she urged people to learn from her mistakes.
Similarly, influencer Taylor LeJeune, an overweight TikToker who achieved fame with viral videos featuring unhealthy eating habits, died of a heart attack in January 2023. “Fat studies” professor Cat Pause, who questioned if obesity was unhealthy, died at 42 in March 2022, and Jamie Lopez, who starred in Super Sized Salon, a reality TV show that aimed to make overweight women feel attractive, died of heart complications at 37 years old in December 2022.
Obesity is also bad for people’s mental health. Obese people are 55% more likely to be depressed than people who are not obese, according to the National Council on Aging.
Yet some politicians and organizations think fat acceptance is the answer. Southwest Airlines provides larger passengers with extra seats for free to accommodate their size, and liberal politicians in blue states such as Colorado, New York, and Massachusetts have filed bills to ban “size discrimination.”
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Whether by eating less, eating healthier, or exercising more, people should reduce their waistlines to live longer, healthier, happier, and less expensive lives. People can take personal responsibility to improve themselves, seeing benefits ranging from having more energy to having an easier time finding a romantic partner.
Though most New Year’s resolutions fail, one cannot succeed without trying, and even modest, pragmatic improvements are worth pursuing.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts.