this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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The average person in America is overweight. Stands to reason an average omnivorous anatomically modern human who is overweight and eats excessively probably eats more than the average amount of meat. Fast food is built around protein staples like beef pork and chicken. Most people eat meat every single day.
As the commenter above you mentioned, meat has extremely negative impacts on the environment and is among the most wasteful things people consume. In particular beef, which is well known to increase risks of cancer and heart disease, is extremely resource and energy intensive to produce. Factory farming and mass beef production have vast consequences for the environment and for our health. Not to mention the many morally objectionable practices that happen in these places.
Ok, let me put it this way: Assuming that an overweight person must eat meat is a logical fallacy.
One of my friends in high school was a vegetarian and was probably around 300 pounds.
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.