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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

#311

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 choose it a bit. First eating all the day long some crap (sweets, processed food, fiberless industrial food), drinking sweet sodas and not walking/doing real sports is a choice. It's the choice to live unhealthy. They should feel bad the same way smokers should feel bad. It's quite a disrespect for oneself.

> They should feel bad the same way smokers should feel bad.

Smokers are chemically and behaviourally addicted to a substance that's killing them. Just like alcoholics and heroin addicts.

It's probably appropriate to view obese people (food addicts) in a similar way. I don't understand the reaction of telling them to feel bad though. People who are addicted to harmful substances deserve sympathy and medical care.

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

#312

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…

> Ideally you should be a BMI 22, non smoking, non drinking, long distance runner living in the countryside eating a perfectly balanced diet. I wonder what the attributes of the commenter are

> Mosy of us will achieve all that, just do what you can.

Should be

> Most of us will never achieve all that, just do what you can.

The mistake dramatically changed the tone of my comment but it lead to much more interesting discourse... Happy little accident?

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

#313
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?

Shame is a powerful demotivator. Guilt is a good motivator.

[deleted]

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

#314

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.

That's an incredibly simplistic way of looking at it.

Alcoholics are "making a choice" to drink alcohol. But we both know that it's more complicated than that. There are both habits and chemical addictions in play which makes it incredibly hard to stop.

Why don't you afford the obesity issue the same level of understanding?

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

#315
post #24

The article tries to frame it as if the U-shaped mortality curve and “healthy obesity” hypothesizing have been debunked, but there’s no suggestion that the U-shaped curve was not real. What appears to actually be debunked is BMI>30 as a definition of obesity. As far as I can tell, epidemiologists operating within the framework of “obesity is BMI>30”, still the one most commonly used at the individual and epidemiologi…

Most people should be considered obese at a BMI around 25 or so, maybe lower. Obesity being set at BMI>30 is actually too generous. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... (And no, low-fat ripped bodybuilders aren't relevant to this discussion. They and their doctors both know that BMI doesn't work well for these rare individuals.)

Only because people stopped shaming the term "overweight", but are still adverse to "obese". The range 25-30 isn't called the "still healthy range", it's "overweight". Being overweight isn't a good thing.

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

#316
The food makes people fat. It's almost all crap now: chemicals, hormones, non-caloric content, non-nutrititive, sweeteners. Eating real food now takes money and initiative. If we went back to the commercial food quality of the 50's the obesity epidemic would end by itself.

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

#317

Yea, being obese isn't health in any way shape or form. Unless you have some sort of exceptional physique that takes you out of the common medical model. You probably don't have that. I fucking hate it. I have at least managed to get under a 40 BMI its a huge slog to even get try to get down to only overweight. And even then in realistic terms even if I do, its 100% impossible to stay there over your lifetime after b…

Great work and keep going! I recently heard a good motivator is to think about something as just the "next thing to do" rather than a challenge or problem. Anyways, I don't it might feel like getting advice in an elevator, but I wish you well.

Thanks for the positive encouragement!

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

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not providing citations either. Get off your fat hating high horse. Walking and exercise make a HUGE difference in average weight. Just look at Canada, a place mostly analogous to the US, but with way more walkable cities and better public transit. They don't have this problem. Regardless of how people get fat, we know for a fact that it's nearly impossible to get back to a healthy weight. Children of fat pare…

"Walking and exercise make a HUGE difference in average weight. " Interesting. I like to walk generally, but in the last year, with a fresh Garmin watch prodding me into more steps, I increased my walking by at least 50 per cent. I actually made some 5 million steps last year, at least 7 km every day, in every weather. My weight fluctuated a bit, but basically didn't change. I am not fat, but I have some amount of be…

Yeah, that's consistent with the research. It seems like the body really likes to stay at a given weight, so it adjusts so there's not too much fluctuation. That's why it's really hard to lose weight and keep it off if you've been fat for a long time.

What exercise helps with is making sure that the occasional binge, or change in circumstances, doesn't lead to permanent weight gain. If you're temporarily disabled for 2 weeks and can't move and put on some weight, your body then burns more of that fat when you go back to exercising, or regulates your appetite so you eat less.

But if you're not used to exercising and then suddenly increase your caloric intake, your body has less opportunity to burn the extra fat, so it leads to long term weight gain, and eventually your gut biome and body adjust to the new normal.

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

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

Definitions aside, look at the video from woodstock 69 -- not even one fat person. Look at a video of a current event in the US.
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