this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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Per this study from 2021 around 74% of Americans consume red meat. Per CDC statistics 73.6% of adults are overweight, and that was for the year 2017-18. Per this statista piece somewhere around 30 billion pounds of red meat was consumed in 2021. Per 2020 data gathered by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Americans consume a large amount of meat even in proportion to other nations, averaging per person around 124.11 kilograms a year.
Roughly 74% of Americans consume red meat, and a pretty similar proportion are overweight. Around 30 billion pounds of beef were consumed in 2021 in America. Americans in general eat much more meat than the rest of the world.
The data is pretty clear on this front. The beef industry in America is absolutely gigantic. And the consequences it has on both the people who consume it and the environment of the world are massive.
The meat isn't why those people are overweight though. It's correlation, not causation. If a person eats a meat only diet, more than likely they'll reduce body fat and gain muscle mass due to the macros they are consuming. It's all the easy calories and lack of exercise that makes so many people overweight.
I appreciate the time it took to link all of that, and I'm sure that there are a lot of meat eaters who are also overweight. The only point I was trying to make is that you can absolutely be vegetarian/vegan and be overweight.