I think this is mostly a repost of this finding [0]
“Healthy obesity” doesn’t exist. It is unequivocally bad for you
301–310 of 397 posts
Re: “Healthy obesity” doesn’t exist. It is unequivocally bad for you
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Humans are 3D objects, but fat is not distributed equally throughout the body. Most fat is subcutaneous fat, i.e. located right below the skin. Its abundance can therefore be approximated by body surface area, which is proportional to height squared.
This might be a nice explanation of it didn't fail to agree empirically with reality, where in fact there is a significant cubic component which gives rise to the "something close to the 2.5th power" that GP suggests.
Re: “Healthy obesity” doesn’t exist. It is unequivocally bad for you
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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?
Section 5.3 of this report covers it a bit: https://www.who.int/europe/publications/i/item/9789289057738
A bit brief though, probably need to check the cited material. The overall theme of the report as awhile though is that motivation issues are less of a factor than generally believed.
Re: “Healthy obesity” doesn’t exist. It is unequivocally bad for you
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
Weight being mostly of muscle is different than mostly of fat. When we say obese, it's the later one.
Socially you're right, we wouldn't call someone obese for being incredibly ripped. But in other areas, we classify people as obese or overweight based on BMI, where a ripped person is probably overweight or obese.
Re: “Healthy obesity” doesn’t exist. It is unequivocally bad for you
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. people do get fat from things other than "over eating" - citation: https://www.drugs.com/article/weight-gain.html 2. I'm the great-grandparent in this thread. My original comment was in essence: I am naturally skinny, nobody questions that. Is it so strange that people might be naturally fat? You've said something that DIRECTLY contradicts that argument, without any evidence or argument to explain why - all you've…
Nobody is "naturally fat". In animal husbandry, people breed livestock for their "feed conversion ratio" - I.e which animals can most efficiently convert the same amount of food into the most additional bodyweight. It's not a stretch to think something similar might happen in people. However, if you're one of those people that puts on more weight per item of food then it sucks to be you, but you'll need to eat less f…
There are medicines that change how your body processes the calories you eat, and the balance may be that in order to get the nutrients you need to stay in good health, you need to eat in a way that causes you to gain weight. There are certainly drugs that increase your appetite, meaning you the effort required to eat less increases dramatically.
But... your overall point is that people need to suffer in discomfort for their entire life so their body looks the way you want it to look? Or so that they stay in good health? If someone is faced with the choice of being fat and happy for 75 years, or being skinny and suffering for 80 years (or whatever the lifespan difference is), why do you feel like your opinion about that choice is something anybody needs to hear? Why is someone else’s choice your business? Do you think that someone should be ashamed or embarrassed about choosing one of those?
I didn’t have to make that choice. But if I did i would 100% choose fat and happy, and i would be upset with anyone who tried to make me unhappy for my choice - especially if it’s coming from someone who didn’t have to make that choice themselves
Re: “Healthy obesity” doesn’t exist. It is unequivocally bad for you
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a popular internet myth that junk food is cheaper than veggies. Of course it isn't true; junk food is more expensive by weight than anything in the produce aisle, with possible exceptions for exotic imported fruits. How this myth survives people wandering around a grocery store looking at price stickers is beyond my comprehension. A 5lb bag of potatoes costs less than a half pound bag of potato chips.
The myth isn’t a myth. It refers to the price of calories, not the price of food by weight. You end up with the cheapest calories being lightly processed grains like rice and flour, then you end up with more processed grains like white bread and ramen, then move to things like peanut butter, before hitting junk food. The point is that the cheapest calories aren’t exactly healthy. The produce aisle tends to be pretty…
An eight pound bag of pinto beans costs $6.88 at my local Walmart and contains over 12,000 calories - that's six days of the 2k calorie diet! Lots of healthy grains like buckwheat and brown rice are available at similar price per calorie and they all require little effort beyond setting a timer for the unattended boiling. Add a couple cents for spices from the value store and a dollar or two for frozen veggies and you've got a meal going for the family!
I challenge you to find any junk food that comes even close to that kind of caloric density per dollar. The cheapest junk food has a tenth of the calories per dollar than a bag of rice from Costco (4-5k calories per dollar), at best.
The problem is that the cheap stuff takes a little effort to make tasty compared to the hyper-palatable junk food. The whole "junk food is cheaper than whole foods per calorie" is nonsense.
Re: “Healthy obesity” doesn’t exist. It is unequivocally bad for you
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
My point is this somewhat pedantic argument about BMI does not matter. The phenomenon of "healthy at any weight" is not hinging on cases where BMI does not capture athletic fitness, or does so poorly. "This guy has a BMI of 28.6 and does power lifting! Checkmate bodyshamers!" is not the logic being used in attempting to coerce people into thinking that obesity is healthy.
1. The original commenter asked “how could someone come to believe otherwise?” My “pedantic argument” answered his question.
2. Note the article is about how BMI is a bad measure for many weight types and frequently miscategorizes risk (e.g., by underweighting risk to “normal” bmi folks with a high body fat %).
The argument that I’m trying to make is not to “checkmate bodyshamers”, it’s to show that bmi is overall a pretty bad measure to use to evaluate weight and health in individuals that include a variety of body types.
Fwiw, I’m not a fan of the “healthy at any weight” stance (that’s clearly BS), but I am definitely trying to show that commonly held beliefs about things like BMI even and especially in the medical community can be dangerous and irresponsible (just like the article explains).
Re: “Healthy obesity” doesn’t exist. It is unequivocally bad for you
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Alcoholism is in fact hereditary.
There are genetic risk factors for developing alcoholism. That's not the same as being hereditary. You're born at risk for alcoholism, not born an alcoholic.
But either way - I don't actually think that alcoholics are bad people. I think that they have an addiction and would benefit from access to resources that help with that. If they want to drink til they die, I'm not going to shame them for that.
Re: “Healthy obesity” doesn’t exist. It is unequivocally bad for you
#309What 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.
Part of the problem is that those who are overweight don't want to be shamed for it or can wish others would avoid the topic. Consequently, it can become a socially complex issue, where people want to avoid hurting other people's feelings, but there is a clear as day health and physical appearance issue. And for many overweight people, once they are allowed to feel comfortable about it, they don't want to do anything about the problem. Too many rather live in delusion, until the end.
When societies put up facades and allows delusion to persists, the actual issue doesn't go away. People are still fat, unhealthy (and dying from it), and their appearance is still an issue (even if friends lie or avoid it).
Re: “Healthy obesity” doesn’t exist. It is unequivocally bad for you
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
The parent already acknowledges that: "On one hand you have to represent your current population, and with the majority of Americans overweight or obese, that's who your customers are." The question is about whether this is normalizing an unhealthy disease, which your comment does not respond to.
How exactly would you advertise these clothes in a not-normal way? What kind of ads make their customers feel dismissed or treat them like shit? The average American is "normal." that's where we are now. > normal adjective : conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern : characterized by that which is considered usual, typical, or routine
It seems the parent comments are inquiring into the morality of the ad campaign. An effective ad shows the potential consumer some desired 'other state' which they could also have by purchasing this good or service. The advertiser is therefore giving some weight to the idea that the obese person in a desirable state. Whereas more traditional ads would show the same clothing on a traditionally attractively weighted person which shows that desired future state includes both the clothing and a more healthy body size.