Weight distribution is not bimodal. Unless nearly everybody got infected by AD-36, but some people just a bit and some a lot more, you would get bimodal distribution.
Or to put it more drastically—AD-36 story predicts median weight barely changing in spite of skyrocketing mean weight.
Now is your chance to be delighted by discovering truth! Here’s one summary:
Results The age-adjusted prevalence of obesity was 30.5% in 1999-2000 compared with 22.9% in NHANES III (1988-1994; P<.001). The prevalence of overweight also increased during this period from 55.9% to 64.5% (P<.001). Extreme obesity (BMI >=40) also increased significantly in the population, from 2.9% to 4.7% (P = .002). Although not all changes were statistically significant, increases occurred for both men and women in all age groups and for non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks, and Mexican Americans. Racial/ethnic groups did not differ significantly in the prevalence of obesity or overweight for men. Among women, obesity and overweight prevalences were highest among non-Hispanic black women. More than half of non-Hispanic black women aged 40 years or older were obese and more than 80% were overweight.
Your comment doesn’t address Nancy’s factual claims. What do the thresholds in your quote tell you about average values? Interestingly, her link is all about how awful thresholds are! The male graph in your source matches the graph in hers, which, by my eyeballing, matches her numbers. The female graph looks different because females are shorter, but I think the pounds are about the same.
As to your original claim, yes, the graph shows that the distribution is not bimodal. But the mean is moving faster than the median.
Your comment doesn’t address Nancy’s factual claims. What do the thresholds in your quote tell you about average values? Interestingly, her link is all about how awful thresholds are!
You see increases for every threshold—that is whole distribution moving. And this is just a few years and one country of process that is world-wide and lasts for at least four decades now.
Oh yes, because we all live in fantasy world where quality historical data is easily available… What is wrong with you people...
Anyway, I dug through to what are pretty much punched card readouts from NHANES I dataset that somehow nobody ever bothered to convert to anything more reasonable.
Here are 10th to 90th percentile of weight in kg, height in cm, and BMI (including children):
NHANES I was 1971-75, already quite a bit into obesity epidemic. These are not anything like pre-epidemic numbers, but good luck finding data much earlier than that.
Data for 2007 says 26th percentile has BMI 25, 73th has BMI 30, so I’ll linearly extrapolate median adult American BMI to be 27.3 - i.e. median person weights 13% more than if obesity epidemic stayed at early 1970s’ level (and let’s guess 20% more than if it never happened).
To people who downvoted me: If you casually call bullshit on someone’s facts, don’t show any data yourself, and then it turns out they were right after all, you fail at rationality. Aumann theorem is overstated, but we’ll never raise sanity waterline if we keep acting like it’s all tribal politics.
There should be nothing casual about this—accusing someone of making shit up should be a big shout-out to the community boldly proclaiming “either mine or theirs Aumann weight is much lower than you estimated before, huge Bayesian network update imminent”. There should be big red warning signs flashing everywhere.
If we get this right, then a person claiming something as fact will indeed be very good evidence that it is a fact. And a person calling bullshit on someone else’s claims will be extremely strong evidence that it is indeed all bullshit. Not after they dig out piles after piles of data—this should only be necessary in exceptional circumstances.
If we need special rituals or formulas for such factual challenges, then let’s come up with some.
Weight distribution is not bimodal. Unless nearly everybody got infected by AD-36, but some people just a bit and some a lot more, you would get bimodal distribution.
Or to put it more drastically—AD-36 story predicts median weight barely changing in spite of skyrocketing mean weight.
My impression is that mean weight has changed very little-- 7 to 10 pounds, with the actual increase being about 25 to 30 pounds at the high end.
The definition of obesity was changed in the 90s.
More details
Now is your chance to be delighted by discovering truth! Here’s one summary:
Every part of weight distribution was affected.
Your comment doesn’t address Nancy’s factual claims. What do the thresholds in your quote tell you about average values? Interestingly, her link is all about how awful thresholds are! The male graph in your source matches the graph in hers, which, by my eyeballing, matches her numbers. The female graph looks different because females are shorter, but I think the pounds are about the same.
As to your original claim, yes, the graph shows that the distribution is not bimodal. But the mean is moving faster than the median.
You see increases for every threshold—that is whole distribution moving. And this is just a few years and one country of process that is world-wide and lasts for at least four decades now.
Part of your original claim was that mean weight is skyrocketing. How much has it actually increased?
Oh yes, because we all live in fantasy world where quality historical data is easily available… What is wrong with you people...
Anyway, I dug through to what are pretty much punched card readouts from NHANES I dataset that somehow nobody ever bothered to convert to anything more reasonable.
Here are 10th to 90th percentile of weight in kg, height in cm, and BMI (including children):
18.37kg, 37.76kg, 51.14kg, 56.81kg, 61.46kg, 66.45kg, 71.78kg, 78.13kg, 86.75kg
109.3cm, 144.9cm, 155.5cm, 159.1cm, 162.2cm, 165.2cm, 168.4cm, 172.4cm, 177.4cm
BMI: 15.7, 17.6, 19.6, 21.1, 22.5, 24.0, 25.6, 27.5, 30.5
Age >= 18 only:
52.16kg, 56.81kg, 60.55kg, 64.3kg, 68.15kg, 72.23kg, 77.0kg, 82.33kg, 90.26kg
155.3 cm, 158.4 cm, 160.9 cm, 163.3 cm, 165.7 cm, 168.2 cm, 171.1 cm, 174.6 cm, 179.0 cm
BMI: 19.7, 21.1, 22.3, 23.4, 24.5, 25.8, 27.1, 28.9, 31.8
NHANES I was 1971-75, already quite a bit into obesity epidemic. These are not anything like pre-epidemic numbers, but good luck finding data much earlier than that.
Data for 2007 says 26th percentile has BMI 25, 73th has BMI 30, so I’ll linearly extrapolate median adult American BMI to be 27.3 - i.e. median person weights 13% more than if obesity epidemic stayed at early 1970s’ level (and let’s guess 20% more than if it never happened).
To people who downvoted me: If you casually call bullshit on someone’s facts, don’t show any data yourself, and then it turns out they were right after all, you fail at rationality. Aumann theorem is overstated, but we’ll never raise sanity waterline if we keep acting like it’s all tribal politics.
There should be nothing casual about this—accusing someone of making shit up should be a big shout-out to the community boldly proclaiming “either mine or theirs Aumann weight is much lower than you estimated before, huge Bayesian network update imminent”. There should be big red warning signs flashing everywhere.
If we get this right, then a person claiming something as fact will indeed be very good evidence that it is a fact. And a person calling bullshit on someone else’s claims will be extremely strong evidence that it is indeed all bullshit. Not after they dig out piles after piles of data—this should only be necessary in exceptional circumstances.
If we need special rituals or formulas for such factual challenges, then let’s come up with some.
It wouldn’t surprise me if you’re getting some downvotes because you gloat.