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

Post by bloaf » Sun, Mar 12, 2023, 9:08 PM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #128

mc32 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying someone who is an alcoholic should feel happy about being an alcoholic and just live it up because, why would I as an alcoholic try and not be an alcoholic if society is telling me I have no agency over it.

Nobody is born an alcoholic. Shockingly, plenty of people are born with bodies that retain fat, even fed the exact same diet as a skinny person. And I sure hope you're carving out an exception for the many many people in the world who are fat because it's a side effect of a medication they are forced to take for an unrelated health condition. Or should they feel bad about their bodies too?

Post by dudul » Sun, Mar 12, 2023, 9:11 PM UTC

_gabe_ wrote: post #226

dudul wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in 3. Is there any research or data about that? I do not encourage fat shaming at all, but I can also imagine that in some cases shame may be a powerful motivator for some people. Is there hard data showing that it actually makes it harder?

Just some anecdata here, but I was toeing the line between overweight and obese about a year ago. I read David Goggins book Can't Hurt Me , and one of the things he talked about was having a note in the mirror reminding you of your goals (real novel concept ikr?). Anyways, the way he phrased it was something like, "If you're fat and don't want to be, right down the raw truth on that note and read it every morning, th…

Post by CM30 » Sun, Mar 12, 2023, 9:13 PM UTC

rhaway84773 wrote: post #57

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.

I think there are several reasons: 1. Historically being fat was considered a sign of good health. Of course, this was during times of massive food scarcity and the definition of fat was probably very different from what we consider fat today. 2. Massive amounts of money involved in telling people to eat/drink more, and then spend more money in gyms and taking pills to lose that weight. As opposed to just eating less…

Post by remarkEon » Sun, Mar 12, 2023, 9:32 PM UTC

csa wrote: post #273

remarkEon wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll criticize the crudeness of BMI as a yardstick for fitness as much as the next guy, but absolutely no one is looking at Arnold’s BMI and thinking “huh, BMI says the terminator is obese therefore it’s okay for me to be obese”. They’re getting this idea from somewhere else, and that somewhere else is a nexus of social media and bizarre fat positivity propaganda that’s leaked out from obscure corners of society and…

Ok, what about my bmi? The point in using extremes and then a more modest (and probably realistic) example of myself was that BMI is a potential trap for anyone who has muscle (even if they are, in fact, very fat). They will most likely be rated a category or two above where they should be, and a weight loss regimen for someone who is “extremely obese” versus someone who is merely “overweight” will probably look very…

Post by virtuallynathan » Sun, Mar 12, 2023, 9:35 PM UTC

mablopoule wrote: post #239

As someone in the "kinda fat kinda fit" category, I'm a bit disappointed by the amount of people so quick to brush off the semi-bullshitness of BMI. I believe it's a good measure for statistics over population, since it's easy to measure and tend to work for a large number of people. On the individual level tough, you really don't need to be a world-class athlete for BMI to become less relevant for you, contrary to w…