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Shifting Waistlines: Fat Is the New Normal

By jjacquet on August 9, 2007.

In 2002, when Randy Olson wrote an Op-Ed for the L.A. Times one of the ways he described the shifting baselines phenomenon was in terms of weight: If your ideal weight used to be 150 pounds and now it's 160, your baseline -- as well as your waistline -- has shifted. And indeed it has.

r.jpgOne-third of American women over 20 are now classified as obese--the only thing is, most of them don't know it. Rueters has the article Americans see fat as normal as weights rise, which briefly describes how obesity and our perception of obesity has changed over the last three decades. Shifting waistlines, just another shifting baseline.

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This posting reminded me of another new normal-- Check out http://www.daveramsey.com/shop/images/products/decal_debt_normal_lg.gif

The point is that normal isn't necessarily a good thing.

(I heard about this slogan from a friend of mine. Admittedly, the website is overly commercial, but I've heard pretty good things about his radio show. Unlike Howard Stern or Rush Limbaugh, he's not just agitating people for the sake of publicity and ratings-- He's trying to get them to change their lives for the better.)