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“Healthy obesity” doesn’t exist. It is unequivocally bad for you

bigthink.com

211–220 of 397 posts

Re: “Healthy obesity” doesn’t exist. It is unequivocally bad for you

#211
post #150

The old line goes > Your BMI tells me your overweight. > But rugby players BMIs are high, and they aren't overweight! > You don't play rugby though do you. I'm glad that "fat acceptance" may be turning a corner and will be banished hopefully and there can be a semblance of rational discourse. Ideally you should be a BMI 22, non smoking, non drinking, long distance runner living in the countryside eating a perfectly b…

“Fat acceptance” doesn’t have to imply that it’s healthy, just that you don’t have to be a complete jerk to overweight people.

You shouldn't lie and enable them either.

Re: “Healthy obesity” doesn’t exist. It is unequivocally bad for you

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most men who go to the gym frequently are in the category of "healthy obese" Healthy obese because of muscle mass is the size of an NFL linebacker, not “most men who go to the gym” ETA: yea, just checked. TJ Watt has a BMI of 30.7 (barely obese BMI). BMI only matters here if you’re TJ Watt lmao

Overweight BMI is 25 and above, and you can reach that pretty easily if you're a man and you weight lift consistently for a couple of months.

> you can reach that pretty easily if you're a man and you weight lift consistently for a couple of months

and also have significant body fat. Having a BMI over 25 and being lean is not something you can achieve by just going to the gym a few months. It takes time to build muscle.

Re: “Healthy obesity” doesn’t exist. It is unequivocally bad for you

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I get to eat what I want and sit around all day? Hell yeah! I am naturally thin. That statement ("i get to eat what i want and sit around all day") is true of my body. Is it such a strange idea that there are as many people who are naturally thin as there are that are naturally fat? Those people aren't making a choice to be fat any more than i am making a choice to be thin. Why should they feel bad about their body…

They are making a choice to be fat because they eat the quantity of food that creates that condition in their body. Nobody says two people should eat the same level of food. You should eat the appropriate amount for your body.

People, in the long term, eat as much as they need to not feel hungry. Whether they are slim or overweight.

Asking people to ear less than they are eating now is thus asking them to be perpetually hungry. It can be done, even for a year or two if they have willpower, but eventually they will get sick of being cold, tired and irritated all the time --because that is what chronic hunger does to you-- and they will go back to the normal behavior of eating until they are no longer hungry.

Re: “Healthy obesity” doesn’t exist. It is unequivocally bad for you

#214
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exercise is essential for health, but not the best bet to lose weight, isn't it?

That's right. Diet is the key to "losing weight."

"Exercise" is a bad way to lose weight because what is traditionally considered as exercise is 30 minutes to 1 hour of high intensity activities. If you live a sedentary life, exercise isn't going to help.

Passive exercise, that you do throughout the day, though, is a great way to expend calories. Walk more, bike for transport, use a standing desk, etc. That's the difference between 1500 calories and 2200.

Re: “Healthy obesity” doesn’t exist. It is unequivocally bad for you

#215

The old line goes > Your BMI tells me your overweight. > But rugby players BMIs are high, and they aren't overweight! > You don't play rugby though do you. I'm glad that "fat acceptance" may be turning a corner and will be banished hopefully and there can be a semblance of rational discourse. Ideally you should be a BMI 22, non smoking, non drinking, long distance runner living in the countryside eating a perfectly b…

What is your age? Let’s see in 30 years. Most young people have these strong opinions, but life happens and they end up differently. Being lean and mean when young is a lot easier then when you are 50 or 60.

Re: “Healthy obesity” doesn’t exist. It is unequivocally bad for you

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthy food can be fattening and unhealthy food can be not fattening. It has very little to do with the type of food and everything to do with the density of calories in the food, and the amount of that food eaten. No one ever got fat eating only vegetables. But you can't eat only vegetables and get all the necessary nutrients(at least not easily).

Our bodies are not adjusted to eating food with high calory density. Junk food messes up the system the way you feel hungry despite eating enough calories, and that leads to eating too much and becoming obese. You're right that eating the right number of calories in junk food won't make you obese, but it is extremely hard to eat the right number of calories when eating mostly junk food. Eat healthy food, and eat only…

Oh yeah eating mostly junk food is not gonna cut it.

But I also managed to lose 30kg eating (lean) meat, full-fat dairy and almost no green vegetables, just a lot of oats for starch/fibre and nuts for extra protein/vitamins/minerals and healthy fats.

But it's also just really hard to tell what food is actually healthy. Some foods are obviously healthy. Some are obviously unhealthy. But a lot is in the middle somewhere, having both healthy and unhealthy aspects.

Some foods are even controversial in the research, like butterfat which many people lump into the group "saturated fats", which is universally thought to be unhealthy by laypeople. But there are multiple types of saturated fat(ty acids), so it's actually really complicated.

My rough intuition based on reading a bunch of research is that dairy fat is actually quite healthy in small amounts(it's very calorically dense). I could go into a lot more detail on why but the gist is butterfat has a lot of short- and medium-chain fatty acids, which are good. It's the long and very-long you want to avoid.

Re: “Healthy obesity” doesn’t exist. It is unequivocally bad for you

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I get to eat what I want and sit around all day? Hell yeah! I am naturally thin. That statement ("i get to eat what i want and sit around all day") is true of my body. Is it such a strange idea that there are as many people who are naturally thin as there are that are naturally fat? Those people aren't making a choice to be fat any more than i am making a choice to be thin. Why should they feel bad about their body…

> Is it such a strange idea that there are as many people who are naturally thin as there are that are naturally fat? [...] Why should they feel bad about their body? Because naturally thin people, and the opposite case, are outliers. There are very few people, especially in the 40s, that can eat a lot and still remain thin.

...and the reason we should make them feel bad is?

Setting aside the fact that you've conceded that you don't know if someone is fat "by choice" or because they are an outlier, so you're ok with making people who are fat because of natural reasons feel bad as casualties in your noble quest to make people who are fat "by choice" feel bad.

Do we shame people for the health risk of going skiing? It's a well know health risk, yet i don't see a lot of people telling skiiers their lifestyle disgusts them.

Re: “Healthy obesity” doesn’t exist. It is unequivocally bad for you

#218

The old line goes > Your BMI tells me your overweight. > But rugby players BMIs are high, and they aren't overweight! > You don't play rugby though do you. I'm glad that "fat acceptance" may be turning a corner and will be banished hopefully and there can be a semblance of rational discourse. Ideally you should be a BMI 22, non smoking, non drinking, long distance runner living in the countryside eating a perfectly b…

It is bizarre that you would read an article which says, “using body-mass index (BMI) to measure obesity is likely the most problematic factor,” and then immediately prescribe a fixed BMI for everyone without qualification.

The article does also say:

>When a team of researchers adjusted BMI to take muscle mass into account back in 2018, then associated this corrected measure with mortality risk, they found that the “U” mostly transformed into a straight line.

Re: “Healthy obesity” doesn’t exist. It is unequivocally bad for you

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthy food can be fattening and unhealthy food can be not fattening. It has very little to do with the type of food and everything to do with the density of calories in the food, and the amount of that food eaten. No one ever got fat eating only vegetables. But you can't eat only vegetables and get all the necessary nutrients(at least not easily).

Our bodies are not adjusted to eating food with high calory density. Junk food messes up the system the way you feel hungry despite eating enough calories, and that leads to eating too much and becoming obese. You're right that eating the right number of calories in junk food won't make you obese, but it is extremely hard to eat the right number of calories when eating mostly junk food. Eat healthy food, and eat only…

I’m not sure that is true, it seems like the preference was always for small highly calorically dense meals.

The 3-4 meals + the constant availability of food is definitely new.

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