Average American Woman Weighs As Much As 1960’s American Man — Men Have Ballooned As Well

A study published by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has yielded data suggesting the modern day (average) American woman weighs as much as the average American man of the 1960’s. It has been suggested that the cause of the spike in weight is tied to unhealthy eating and processed food.

As you can see from the graph above, the average weights of Americans (both sexes) have absolutely ballooned in recent decades. The average weight for women in America is 166.2-pounds, a fraction below the average 1960’s male weight of 166.3-pounds. In this same span of time the weight of the average American male has gone from 166.3-pounds on up to 195.5-pounds. Assuming the data accounted for outliers, you need to stop for a second and realize that over 50% of dudes in America weigh 195.5-pounds OR MORE. And that’s not even the most shocking part of the data.

Just look at these figures from WaPo’s Wonkblog and realize how big and awesome we Americans are compared to our international brethren:

The average American is 33 pounds heavier than the average Frenchman, 40 pounds heavier than the average Japanese citizen, and a whopping 70 pounds heavier than the average citizen of Bangladesh. To add up to one ton of total mass, it takes 20 Bangladeshis but only 12.2 Americans.

Together, the world’s adult human beings added up to 287 million tons of biomass in 2005, according to the BMC Public Health study. But if every country had the same weight distribution as the U.S., the world would be 58 million tons fatter, an increase of 20 percent.

The study concludes that “tackling population fatness may be critical to world food security and ecological sustainability.”

The average American is 70 POUNDS HEAVIER than the average citizen of Bangladesh?!?!? How is that even possible? And how should we interpret this data?

My thoughts on how to interpret this data are as follows: “The average American is 33% MORE AWESOME than the average Frenchman, 40% MORE AWESOME than the average Japanese citizen, and a whopping 7% MORE AWESOME than the average citizen of Bangladesh.”

Now go forth into the world and spread the word of how much more awesome we are than the rest by sharing this study concluding we’re 70% more awesome than people from Bangladesh!

P.s., as much as I love to hate on CrossFit, I’d just like to point out that CrossFit is just one of hundreds of sports invented here in America, and we’re home to some of the fittest and best athletes in the world.