I refuse to call it a diet. I'm eating fresher and healthier - more of the good stuff, less of the bad. But don't dare call it a diet.

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The CDC's statistics are ridiculous, which probably contributes to this false perception of Americans being too fat. I'm 5'9, 170 pounds, with 17% bodyfat, and according to the CDC's BMI standards I'm overweight.

The CDC doesn't bother including whether a person's weight come more from muscle or fat. For all we know, this:

"a recent survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention saying that about 24% of U.S. adults are obese, up from 16% in 1995 and 20% in 2000."

...might mean that more Americans are eating healthy and building muscle, and therefore getting heavier while reducing fat.

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"Sadly, the actual numbers of those who obese and overweight in America has continued to climb..." as has the number of people who insist on equating outward physical appearance with health. Lots of thin people are unhealthy, lots of fat people are healthy. You can't tell by looking.

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unless you're all muscle Chris, then maybe you are at a higher risk for weight related problems (hence the cdc's label of overweight)

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Being 100% muscle isn't exactly healthy, but that's besides the point. The point, rather, is that the CDC just measures height and weight, and doesn't bother determining whether you're 10% bodyfat or 40% bodyfat before they declare you overweight or obese. Any professional bodybuilder would qualify as obese by their standards.

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Count calories, or at least be aware of them in some general controlled portion fashion. Eat a good breakfast and lunch. Avoid low quality calories and low quality carbs. --we all know what they are--but we can probably start with avoiding french fries, "snack foods", and sugared soft drinks! Exercise. Be aware of when you are burning calories (during the day) and when you are burning fewer calories (evening, watching TV!) and tailor energy consumption. Don't be obsessive and enjoy an occasional splurge. Monitor your weight on a digital scale. Last year, I lost 30 lbs, at the rate of 1 lb a week... just by following this so called diet, and I have kept it off by continuing watching calories and avoiding lower quality calories. The problem with diets is that they are temporary fixes, when people really need to change their relationship with eating and food. This is not new information, we already know it!

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"Lots of thin people are unhealthy, lots of fat people are healthy"
There is a place in Europe that I call home. I visit often. While Im in the US I live in the South. I don't need any kind of statistics to tell me that a great majority of Americans is overweight - just a trip to mall. You might not be aware of this because you are seeing these people every day, but when I go home I start wondering "Why is everybody so small... or WAIT!!...".
People there walk more (dont drive to their mailboxes, walk to work...), spend less time in front of a TV or a computer, rarely eat "a burger, fries and supersize Cola (or a shake)" for LUNCH. And why - because it is more trouble to find a parking spot than to walk, and because they dont have fastfoods available on every corner.
So, unless you are a bodybuilder type (and you know if you are), and CDC BMI tells you are overweight, you probably are(or you are a mutant... ninja turtle). If you continue to be overweight you will (simply) not only look and feel bad but also get sick and if you are lucky die quickly. So do you really need to wait for surveys and researchers to tell you this (and even when they do, you try to make excuses why they are wrong)?

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But you really *can't* tell by looking! Our current standard of beauty is anorexic, which is thin but not healthy.

European-thin comes from walking (which is healthy) but also from avid cigarette-smoking (which isn't). It's not as simple as "Europeans live better than Americans." They live better in some ways (I'm having nostalgia for certain fruit markets in Montmartre at this moment) and worse in others (evidenced by the reality that their lifespans aren't longer than ours, on average).

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Ok so I'm biased because I write a Weight-Watchers heavy blog, but I think that "eating healthy" has been the theme of using the Weight Watchers program since the beginning.

People ask me all the time what WW is about, and I tell them it's eating lower-fat, lower-sodium, calorie-light foods while exercising when you can. There's no mojo, no tomfoolery, just eat less and exercise more. Add some group support and a calibrated scale and you've got a program.

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I don't need any kind of statistics to tell me that a great majority of Americans is overweight - just a trip to mall. You might not be aware of this because you are seeing these people every day, but when I go home I start wondering "Why is everybody so small... or WAIT!!...".

Funny, when I go to the mall in Florida, I see the exact opposite trend. I don't see a majority of people overweight. Most are in good shape. I have noticed that Europeans tend to be smaller than many Americans, but only in height and musculature. When it comes to being overweight, I don't notice any particular difference.

"So, unless you are a bodybuilder type (and you know if you are), and CDC BMI tells you are overweight, you probably are(or you are a mutant... ninja turtle). If you continue to be overweight you will (simply) not only look and feel bad but also get sick and if you are lucky die quickly."

I eat well and exercise five days a week. I look and feel fine, and rarely get sick. The CDC BMI could not be more wrong.

Failing to take into account one's proportion of lean tissue to fat is what makes the CDC's numbers fail. Anybody with a decently developed musculature is going to qualify as overweight for their height on their chart. Muscle is heavier than fat.

The CDC must love scrawny, poorly-muscled individuals, since that's what their BMI is biased towards. Paying attention to their numbers will result in a trend towards anorexia and other eating disorders, and not a healthy lifestyle.

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I agree with Christopher....
Leaner doesnt necessarily better health...
weighing Less than reccomended is just as damaging as being overweight but carrries NONE of the stigma.

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You can argue all day about whether or not BMI is a flawed system. Obviously no one measurement is going to work for every single person. This doesn't change the fact that Americans have gotten really, really fat. And yeah, some fat people are in decent health (for now). So what? Not all people who smoke die from smoking-related illness. Does that make smoking a good idea? No, and the fact is that if you are overweight, you are more likely to get sick. So why take that chance? Why not just make a little extra effor to eat well and exercise?

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