Fat, Dumb, and Ugly : The Decline of the Average American
by Peter Strupp; Alan DingmanFormat: Paperback
Pub. Date: 2004-02-24
Publisher(s): Simon & Schuster
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Summary
The world's lone superpower...supreme guardian of democracy...and home of the blithely uninformed and epidemically obese. Welcome to America -- pull up a chair, click on the tube, and grab a donut. Concerned Citizen Peter Strupp is shocked and bothered by what he sees. It seems we're not as thin, smart, and good-looking as we like to think. Packed with real facts and statistics, Fat, Dumb, and Ugly takes readers on an eye-opening, laugh-out-loud, and at times horrifying tour of the numbers that shape our country: Percentage of adults in the United States who are overweight: 64.5 Percentage of Americans who believe they have actually spoken with Satan: 5 Percentage of voters for whom Saturday Night Live and MTV are primary sources of information about presidential candidates: 16 Average number of pink lawn flamingos sold annually in America: 250,000A wickedly hilarious and addictive cultural snapshot of our nation of conspicuous consumers, fast-food fanatics, and dumbed-down dolts,Fat, Dumb, and Uglycasts a revealing spotlight on John Q. Public, the average American -- and it's not always pretty.
Excerpts
FAT
Percentage of adults in the United States who are overweight: 64.5 (about 127 million)
Number of these who are considered obese: 60 million
Number who are considered severely obese: 9 million
Percentage of Americans considered overweight in 1980: 46
Percentage of overweight adolescent children in 1980: 5
Percentage of overweight adolescent children today: 15
Estimated number of premature deaths caused by obesity annually: 300,000
Rank of obesity, relative to smoking, as a preventable cause of death: second
State with the highest percentage of overweight Americans: Mississippi (26%)
State with the lowest percentage of overweight Americans: Colorado (14%)
Amount spent by Americans every year trying to lose or control their weight: $30 billion
Percentage increase in the number of Americans to have undergone liposuction from 1992 to 1997: 215
Percentage increase in the number of American men to have undergone liposuction from 1992 to 1999: 385
Average amount of fat removed in a single liposuction procedure: 1.5 quarts
Fat content equivalent in premium ice cream: 18 pints
Gastric bypass surgery procedures in 1992: 16,200
Gastric bypass surgery procedures in 1997: 23,100
Gastric bypass surgery procedures in 2002: 63,100
Daily caloric requirement of the average inactive 180-pound American: 1,800
Calories in one Burger King Double Whopper: 920
Percentage by which consumption of red meat and poultry by Americans increased between 1990 and 2000: 21
Average annual meat consumption by Americans: 110 pounds
Average annual meat consumption by Europeans: 55 pounds
Average lifetime ice cream consumption by Americans: 1 ton
Average annual ice cream consumption by Americans: 6 gallons
Weekly ice cream consumption rate, measured in ice cream cones: 3.5
Average annual per capita consumption of sweeteners (sugars, syrups, and honey) by Americans in 1990: 137 pounds
Average annual per capita consumption of sweeteners by Americans in 2000: 160 pounds
Percentage of Americans who believe that diabetes will decrease in the future: 65%
Rank of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team among top 50 individual campaign contributors: forty-eighth
Rank of Saban Entertainment (Power Rangers, Transformers, DinoZaurs, Samurai Pizza Cats): forty-fourth
Rank of Slim-Fast: ninth
Percentage by which a croissant at the American franchise Au Bon Pain is bigger than a typical croissant at a Parisian bakery: 100
Average weight gain by a visiting international student during his or her first ten days in the United States: 2 pounds
Total American expenditure on fast food in 1970: $6 billion
Total American expenditure on fast food in 2000: $110 billion
We now spend more on fast food than we do on higher education.
We spend more on fast food than we do on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music combined.
Number of hot dogs eaten in 12 minutes at the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest: 50
Number of Quarter Pounders eaten in 10 minutes (heavyweight division): 11
Period for which a 27-inch TV could be powered by the calories consumed in an average American's Thanksgiving Day meal: 49 hours
Percentage by which the volume of a 7-Eleven X-treme Gulp soft drink is bigger than the volume of the human stomach: 50
Percentage of public schools in the United States that have signed exclusive "pouring rights" contracts with soft drink companies: 10
Number of book covers distributed to middle schools nationwide with samples of Cadbury Schweppes' Sour Patch Kids: 500,000
Percentage of American children who recognize Ronald McDonald: 96
Calories produced by United States agribusiness daily, per American, in 1970: 3,300
Calories produced by United States agribusiness daily, per American, in 2000: 3,800
Average daily caloric requirement for an adult: 2,800
Average number of Americans killed annually by vending machines falling on them: 13
Copyright © 2004 by Lark Productions, LLC
Excerpted from Fat, Dumb, and Ugly: The Decline of the Average American by Peter Strupp
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
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