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

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

#241

Post by rolisz »

gadders wrote: post #209
amrocha wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's people that don't do all that and are still fat, and making them "feel bad" about it is counter productive. In fact, the research on losing weight is quite clear: once you've put on weight, losing it and keeping it off is nearly impossible, and requires life long constant effort. Instead of focusing on individual behavior, you should be speaking out against a government that built a car society, made cities h…

Citation needed. Nobody gets fat without over-eating. Walking and exercise in general make less difference to weight loss than diet. People know what food is healthy. If they choose not to do it, it's on them.

No, but some people process different food differently, so eating the same amount of food might lead to different weight in different people.

And no, the jury is not out on what food is healthy. Carbs are public enemy number 1 according to keto people. Carbs are the best according to Italians.

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

#242

Post by kennywinker »

throw_pm23 wrote: post #234
code_sloth wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be genetically blessed, others might be genetically cursed. Some are genetically predisposed to becoming fat. Its still a fact that they are fat. And being fat comes with associated health risks.

The genetic cause doesn't explain why ratio of obesity went from 10% to 60% in one generation. Fat people didn't have that much more kids.

It's likely the result of genetic, epigenetic, cultural, economic, and food system factors combined.

As for how it went from 10% to 60% (your numbers, idk if they're right) one piece of the puzzle is that in 1998 the definition of obesity was changed, which made MANY more people fall into the obese category who did not previously: http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9806/17/weight.guidelines/

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

#243

Post by manmal »

gadders wrote: post #209
amrocha wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's people that don't do all that and are still fat, and making them "feel bad" about it is counter productive. In fact, the research on losing weight is quite clear: once you've put on weight, losing it and keeping it off is nearly impossible, and requires life long constant effort. Instead of focusing on individual behavior, you should be speaking out against a government that built a car society, made cities h…

Citation needed. Nobody gets fat without over-eating. Walking and exercise in general make less difference to weight loss than diet. People know what food is healthy. If they choose not to do it, it's on them.

I agree with the part that diet is way more important than walking and exercise, in the short term. But not exercising can lead to obesity long term. Here are some other things that can cause obesity / type 2 diabetes aside from dietary choices:

- Microbiome (eg due to bad microbiome passed on at birth): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27255389/

- Sitting the whole day

- Circadian rhythm disturbance, eg through shift work

- Gestational diabetes increases infant‘s T2D risk later in life

- Hypothyroidism

- Hypogonadism / low Testosterone

- Chronic inflammation, eg via inflamed root canals or chronic infections. People can have eg low grade E. coli overgrowth without knowing.

- Low gut barrier function due to drugs or inflammation

- many many more

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

#244

Post by csa »

stametseater wrote: post #5

What interests me is how anybody could ever come to believe otherwise. The contrary belief flies in the face of all common sense, popular experience and medical science. It seems to come entirely from propaganda on social media telling fat people what they want to believe.

> What interests me is how anybody could ever come to believe otherwise. The contrary belief flies in the face of all common sense, popular experience and medical science.

Did you read the article?

I can give you two simple examples:

Look at any picture of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson when he has been ripped. Ditto with Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime.

BMI says these folks are either obese or severely obese. Extreme examples, but illustrative of the weakness of bmi.

On a personal level, I have been listed as obese by a doctor when I weighed in 205 as someone who is 5’11” (somewhat carelessly, because bmi was 28.x, and “obese” is 30+, but still…).

Doctor did not care to notice that I was very muscular, exercise regularly (weights and cardio), and was pretty lean.

The doctor wanted to talk to me about my “weight problem”. I pulled out dexa can showing that I had 176 pounds of lean body mass and was 14-15% body fat (“healthy” range, and probably much leaner than her, even though she was slight build and thin), told her about my diet and exercise regimen, and she quickly reversed course.

You can see how muscular people are unhappy about bmi being used for individual evaluation.

BMI is a measure that is meant to be used to measure populations rather than individuals. Being used as a quick a dirty evaluation tool without looking in more detail by the doctor is irresponsible medicine — yet it is common practice.

This is why “anybody could come to believe otherwise”.

Obviously, if the dexa scan comes back saying someone is 30% body fat, no amount of muscle can make that “healthy”, but I think that’s not where most thoughtful people have issues with potentially specious claims of obesity.

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

#245

Post by harshreality »

kennywinker wrote: post #118
psychphysic wrote: post #96

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…

> 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…

I'm naturally thin too, but thin is relative. I noticed on day soon after college that I was starting to acquire (relatively minor) fat deposits, and despite that not making me even close to overweight, I resolved that I wasn't going to put up with that. Since then I've payed more attention to health and fitness. I could eat pizza all the time and not be overweight, but I don't because I know that would be unhealthy.

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

#246

Post by manmal »

etothepii wrote: post #231
manmal wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s assuming perfect conversion of energy to body fat. That’s never the case due to losses, and everybody is _vastly_ different: > In response to 84 days of 1000 kcal/day of overfeeding, 12 pairs of monozygotic twins gained on average 8.1 kg, but the range was from 4.3 to 13.3 kg. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2897177/

Your arithmetic does not support the use of the word vastly. It only diverges by mine on the line above by 25%.

> 4.3 to 13.3 kg

That’s not a vast range? It means some people gain more than they „should“, and some less than half of the caloric intake.

It’s also not „my“ arithmetic btw.

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

#247

Post by slowmovintarget »

justinator wrote: post #129
newaccount74 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that so? I often get headaches after excercise, that only go away after taking anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen. So I always thought exercise triggers inflammation for me (especially if I go harder than usual).

Exercise does trigger inflammation, and countering that inflammation can in fact degrade the positive effects of exercise. Inflammation is the body's signal to rebuild and strengthen. I obviously can't tell from your hn post (and IANA doctor), but sometimes I get headaches because I haven't drank enough water, or I've just gone out too hard.

This is right. The body has all kinds of mechanisms that use inflammation to repair and reshape. Exercise channels this into breakdown and strengthening of muscles, blood vessel enlargement, and a host of other beneficial tissue manipulations.

Making sure you're adequately hydrated is important, as is supporting the cellular activity with nutrition.

Where things go off the rails is when the body spends excess energy and inflammatory responses on things not connected to repair and replenish operations. You get acid reflux, allergies, tumors, even dementia-related diseases.

Of course it's not that simple, but for nearly every single one of those pathologies, exercise improves the chances to avoid them, or helps reduce their negative outcomes. (IANA doctor either.)

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

#248

Post by mancerayder »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #206
mancerayder wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can cease buying sugary foods and snacks like chips at the supermarket when you shop. You can explore swapping macros a bit so there's a bias in favor of eggs and fish and other protein. You can try to cut down eating between meals. The idea of Predestination with regards to eating needs to stop. If there is a psychological addiction then that's the part to be addressed, it's a valid concern. I see what people ea…

None of this matters when it comes to pure weight. You can eat the most healthy diet in the world and still be massively obese. On the other hand I have successfully lost 100 lbs in 6 months in the past, while eating fast food daily. I won't discuss the "healthiness" aspect of it, but losing weight is ONLY a matter of calories.

Then you're lucky. I a) intermittent fast, so never eat breakfast b) never eat dessert c) don't snack d) lift weights 3x a week and do other sports once a week e) don't eat fast food, and often skip appetizers, and stick to protein and veggies. If I don't do these things I get fat fast. So my sympathy for 'unlucky' is minimal; I'm sure only a small percentage of people suffer from such a poor metabolism that anything they eat causes the to gain weight. The rest choose not to put the effort in.

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

#249

Post by sorenjan »

Symmetry wrote: post #204
emilyst wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes. BMI is your weight divided by height squared. Which is really weird when you consider that humans are 3D objects! So you should naturally expect that a taller person will have a higher BMI than a shorter person even with the exact same proportions. In practice humans who are taller tend to be skinnier so we'd ideally use something close to the 2.5th power but that math would have been impractical for the 19th ce…

A few years ago I read a paper where they checked the correlation between CT measured body fat percentage and a lot of easily measured and calculated figures, in the same style of BMI (w/h²). I haven't been able to find it again, but if I remember correctly BMI was actually pretty good, although worse for women than for men, and the best measurement included waist circumference.

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

#250

Post by koonsolo »

csa wrote: post #244
stametseater wrote: post #5

What interests me is how anybody could ever come to believe otherwise. The contrary belief flies in the face of all common sense, popular experience and medical science. It seems to come entirely from propaganda on social media telling fat people what they want to believe.

> What interests me is how anybody could ever come to believe otherwise. The contrary belief flies in the face of all common sense, popular experience and medical science. Did you read the article? I can give you two simple examples: Look at any picture of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson when he has been ripped. Ditto with Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime. BMI says these folks are either obese or severely obese. Extreme…

What about something like ABSI? https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/a-body-shape-index
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