Two out every three women in the U.S. were above a normal weight.Yea, team! We are the new normal. We're what happens when a species - evolved over a hundred millennia to survive annual famine by storing fat - confronts nonstop abundant and tasty food.
Three out of four men in the U.S. exceeded a normal weight.
It's as though we live in a feedlot; no wonder we're as well-marbled as prime beef. Instead of malnutrition we cope with hypernutrition.
Take heart, overweight people can live to be old - my parents did. And there is solid research evidence a bit of weight can help you live longer, as we wrote in 2013:
Being somewhat overweight (but not obese) is actually healthier for people of middle age or older. Healthier than being at the so-called "ideal" weight.
