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

bigthink.com

31–40 of 397 posts

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

#31

There’s really no getting around the fact that you need to live an active life of consuming things in moderation to be healthy.

The challenge is what is the closest hack to get around it, as most people, admittedly myself included, are not willing to exercise? Semaglutide seems to be the best bet right now.

Worry about exercise later once you're at a healthy weight. You can lose it solely by watching what you eat. "Snacking" is the single worst dietary habit of the past 100 years. Eating all the time and having your insulin constantly elevated is not good for the body.

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

#33

I think the article is arguing that there is such a thing as being healthy with a high BMI? It's just that those people generally don't have an excessively high body fat %. But if we are going by BMI, there are plenty of people who have "healthy obesity", on account of muscle mass. I've been working out for many years and I think I have a healthy body fat percentage but since I'm not very thin its hard to tell withou…

I believe nobody is confusing Arnold or Hulk Hogan as obese.

In the case of Hogan, I think you can find photos of him in the 1980s where he looks overweight. He was muscular enough that it didn't matter much, but he was far from being "ripped". He downsized in the 1990s and I think he looked better for it.

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

#34
post #21

Denial/wishful thinking are extremely powerful. That said, body positivity shouldn't be thought of as having anything to say about objective physical health: there is zero reason a person who is obese should necessarily feel bad about themselves. Shame is a useless or detrimental approach to changing behavior; shame is oftentimes the reason people engage in unhealthy behaviors like overeating in the first place. Bein…

Maybe there is some space between being shamed and being treated as a role model?

No obese people are not bad people but I would like to be able to say that I don't approve of their lifestyle and don't want my kids to believe that it is normal and fine to be obese.

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

#36

I think the article is arguing that there is such a thing as being healthy with a high BMI? It's just that those people generally don't have an excessively high body fat %. But if we are going by BMI, there are plenty of people who have "healthy obesity", on account of muscle mass. I've been working out for many years and I think I have a healthy body fat percentage but since I'm not very thin its hard to tell withou…

> I would say that most men who go to the gym frequently are in the category of "healthy obese", or overweight, if you just take into account their BMI.

Maybe it’s regional, but that’s not what I see in the places I’ve lived.

Almost all except some of the young just-post-college athletes are clearly bulked out with fairly high body fat and plainly inverted waist to hip ratios. They can perform a handful of lifts at high weight, but have negligible cardio conditioning, poor engagement of support muscles and stabilizers, and many are sporting progressively worsening back issues.

The trend in gym practice for men, around me, seems to be really poorly matched to healthfulness in general and shows very little evidence of producing lean high-BMI results. But again, maybe its regional.

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

#37

There’s really no getting around the fact that you need to live an active life of consuming things in moderation to be healthy.

The challenge is what is the closest hack to get around it, as most people, admittedly myself included, are not willing to exercise? Semaglutide seems to be the best bet right now.

something bad is going to happen to people who think they can just take Ozempic for the rest of their lives

there's no way a drug that effective has no side effects

I know people who have lost weight using Ozempic...you only lose weight...you do not become healthy...you do not gain muscle...you just are a flabby person who is less fat

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

#38

There’s really no getting around the fact that you need to live an active life of consuming things in moderation to be healthy.

The challenge is what is the closest hack to get around it, as most people, admittedly myself included, are not willing to exercise? Semaglutide seems to be the best bet right now.

"if you can’t find time to exercise, you’ll have to find time to be sick."

How much time for that do you have? Pushing around a walker when you're 65? Spending hours on the phone with Customer Support for some insurance issue?

https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/50-years-of-running

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

#39
Thinking obesity is one number is as dumb as thinking intelligence is one number. Card counting used to be one number, till they realized how much better two numbers did. Yet in this day of smart phones, one still sees geriatricians calculating stroke risk using a rule they can do in their heads. I'd rather trust my health care to prediction markets, if we could work through the data privacy issues.

So where's the BMI table that asks height and "how wide are your shoulders?"

For some of us, "big boned" isn't a euphemism.

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

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The challenge is what is the closest hack to get around it, as most people, admittedly myself included, are not willing to exercise? Semaglutide seems to be the best bet right now.

There is no hack. Exercise is non-negotiable. Our lifestyles are far too sedantry for our bodies' evolution. If you are not willing to add a small amount of exercise into your life, you are admitting that you are happy to at least have health issues later in life or at most willing to live a shorter life.

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