Today’s Big Story

Obesity Rates on the Rise

Without ‘immediate action’ nearly 260 million Americans will be overweight or obese by 2050

Despite the rise of wellness in American culture (not to mention weightless drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic), nearly three quarters of U.S. adults are currently overweight or obese, according to a sweeping new study.

The long-term study, published on Thursday in The Lancet, reveals the striking rise of obesity rates nationwide since 1990 (when around 50% adults were overweight or obese) and shows how more people are becoming overweight or obese at younger ages than in the past. Both conditions can raise the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, and shorten life expectancy.

The study’s authors documented increases in the rates of overweight and obesity across ages. They used 134 unique data sources to reach these conclusions, including national surveillance data. They also used the definition of these conditions based on body mass index (BMI), noting it might not account for variations in body structure.

They were particularly alarmed by the steep rise among children, more than one in three of whom are now overweight or obese. Without aggressive intervention, they forecast, the number of overweight and obese people will continue to go up—reaching nearly 260 million people in 2050.

The findings have wide-reaching implications for the nation’s health and medical costs as it faces a growing burden of weight-related diseases. The health costs of obesity in this country are substantial, reports CNN. In 2016, health care costs attributed to obesity alone were between $261 billion and $481 billion. And obesity and overweight—defined as a BMI over 30 or between 25 and 29.9, respectively—are among the fastest-growing risk factors for an early death or disability in the United States.

The report comes as the scientific understanding of what causes obesity, and how best to treat it, is evolving. While the prevailing viewpoint once was that obesity was merely a problem of calories in and calories out, and that people simply needed to eat less and exercise more to lose weight, the reality is much more nuanced, says Sarah Armstrong, a professor of pediatrics and population health sciences at Duke University who was not involved in the study. “Obesity comes from genetic, physiological and environmental interactions,” she said. “It’s not the fault of any one individual who has the disease.”

Trump’s Cabinet-in-Waiting Stirs Controversy

Many say the group fits classic reality-show archetypes

Elect a reality TV star, get reality TV moves. When Donald Trump was filling his first Cabinet back in 2016, his process was widely, and accurately, compared to a casting call for The Apprentice. And the Intelligencer recalls him toying with hires like Laura Ingraham, Sarah Palin, Kanye West, and Rudy Giuliani. Only he didn’t actually go with his zaniest options. “Now the president-elect is far less worried about what Reince Priebus or Mitch McConnell–types think; new Majority Leader John Thune is open to letting him skirt the Senate confirmation process. So Trump is going with his gut.”

With picks like Kristi Noem, Pete Hegseth and Elon Musk (who seems like he’ll be the new Jared), it appears that Trump’s instinct is to “assemble a crew that’s more fit for an all-MAGA Dancing With the Stars than a serious White House Cabinet.” Days before the election, Donald Trump’s transition team co-chair Howard Lutnick was asked on CNN if there was a possibility that vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would serve as the Health and Human Services secretary if Trump were elected. “No,” Lutnick said. “Of course not.” But in the week after the election—following several nominations that seemed extreme to many lawmakers in Trump’s own party—the president-elect announced on Thursday that Kennedy would be his nominee for HHS.

The Onion Buys Infowars (Really!)

The famed satire publication acquired it at auction with Sandy Hook families’ backing

It’s so ironic and hilarious, that you’d think it was an Onion headline. But this isn’t a joke. The satirical news publication was named the winning bidder for Alex Jones’ Infowars at a bankruptcy auction Thursday, backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims whom Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax.

The purchase would turn over Jones’ company, which for decades has peddled in conspiracy and misinformation, to a humor website that plans to relaunch in January as a parody of itself—mocking “weird internet personalities” like Jones who traffic in misinformation and health supplements. About an hour and a half after the announcement of the sale, Infowars' website was shut down.

“We thought this would be a hilarious joke,” Ben Collins, the chief executive of The Onion's parent company, Global Tetrahedron, told the New York Times. “This is going to be our answer to this no-guardrails world where there are no gatekeepers, and everything’s kind of insane.” Details of the auction, including how much was offered for Free Speech Systems, the parent company of Infowars, and related assets, were not immediately known.

A Weekend Pairing

‘Say Nothing’ + a 12-Year-Old Irish Whiskey

The new FX/Hulu drama Say Nothing is a retelling of The Troubles, a battle between Catholics and Protestants that tore Northern Ireland apart from the 1960s through the 1990s. Like most battles that are hundreds of years in the making, the issues are complex and the people on each side are there for complicated reasons. Trying to capture that time period in a limited series would seem like a daunting task. But this series seems to have cracked that problem.

Critics agree: As a show, Say Nothing is well-executed and features excellent performances (Maxine Peake's is perhaps the strongest). TIME calls it the "must-watch political drama of the year." And Slate confirms it's well-executed and features excellent performances for a "story that's long-overdue" to be told.

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Take it easy.