According to the CDC, I weigh 6% less than the average American woman. My waist is 13% smaller.

March 2, 2022 by Joshua
in Fitness

I stumbled across some CDC statistics on American averages:

  • Men:
    Height in inches: 69.0
    Weight in pounds: 199.8
    Waist circumference in inches: 40.5
  • Women:
    Height in inches: 63.5
    Weight in pounds: 170.8
    Waist circumference in inches: 38.7

I was born with three genetic conditions on weight. One is that if I eat more calories than I use or excrete, I put on weight immediately, mostly fat if I don’t do muscle-building exercise. Another is that I have tremendous difficulty stopping eating until I feel full. A third is that I love the tastes of salt, sugar, and fat and find it hard to resist convenience. If something I find tasty is within reach or view, I generally think about it and want to put it in my mouth.

By contrast, I believe the science that being overfat is unhealthy, lowers mood, and lowers life expectancy, so I prefer to keep myself fit. Given my conditions, I’ve developed ways to live to achieve fitness. Mainly, I keep only healthy foods around me and I categorize doof as different from food. Developing feelings of disgust for doof makes it easy not to put it in my mouth.

I can’t afford to spend what the average American can on food and doof, nor do I have extra time, so I can’t pay extra for food, programs, gyms, etc. I’ve shared my food budget and it’s below the average American’s, even without economies of scale I’d get if I weren’t living alone. My largest single food expense doesn’t even have a category on the chart: dried beans and legumes.

Someone is paying for all that doof, apparently with time and money to burn that I don’t have. Other Americans choose to live differently. Perhaps as a result, according to the CDC I weigh 6% less than the average American woman. My waist is 13% smaller. Apparently the average American man in 1960 would weigh less than the average woman today, so maybe I’m a dinosaur, living an outdated lifestyle. Maybe I should earn more money to be able to afford doof and catch up in weight to American women and men.

Apparently, those numbers for women mean over 45% body fat, the bottom row on the right below.

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