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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

#321

Post by peapicker »

otherme123 wrote: post #235
Jtsummers wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, especially the 22 BMI target. For me (5'10") that would mean 155lbs, I'd have to shed (going by my scale which estimates body fat percentage) around 28 lbs of fat (I'm at 15% fat right now, so 28 lbs would get me to 0% which is unhealthy) and 7lbs of other weight to hit that target. Could I lose some weight? Sure. But I won't. Back on the exercise habit after a few months off and I'm getting slimmer but my we…

I'm 185 cm (6'1") and 73 kg (161 lbs), for a BMI of 21.3. I still have more than 0% fat, but I'm certainly slim. I don't have to fight at all to keep my weight as it is, and I'm healthy. You say 30 BMI, but in my experience unless you are lifting a lot of weights 25 is the upper limit. Ten years ago I hit 25 BMI, and despite feeling "normal" there were already the first signs of being fat: thights always red, sweaty…

"...in my experience unless you are lifting a lot of weights 25 is the upper limit.."

I get you...

I'm 6'0" (183cm) and 212 lbs (96kg) (BMI=29). I'm at 17% body fat and am working toward 10%, but also have been lifting weights heavily. I just got down to size 32 jeans (82cm waist) but have a 48.5" chest (123cm) and 15.5" (40cm) biceps. I still wish to lose 15-20lb more, but then I'd be at 195lb and about 8% body fat -- with a BMI of ~27. (Assuming I don't add more muscle at the same time.)

It is a lot better than a 15 months ago when I made my life change - I was 240lb (109kg) and 38% body fat, and pushing a 38" (96cm) waist, truly obese. And I felt like shite.

I am surprised how much I have come to love weightlifting, rowing, and eating a diet better balanced towards low-caloric density foods (lots of veggies) and lean protein. And I am more surprised at how quickly my body changed, considering I'm now just over 50.

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

#322

Post by edflsafoiewq »

sorenjan wrote: post #249
Symmetry wrote: post #204

Earlier 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…

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.

Waist-to-height ratio is surprisingly good: your waist should not be more than half your height. Simple to measure too, since you only need a piece of string.

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

#323

Post by Qem »

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.

Probably because some popular "treatments" for the condition often attempted are far worse than obesity itself. Yo-yo dieting, amphetamine use, serial liposuction, binge eating and throwing up, et cetera.

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

#324

Post by navjack27 »

frankzander wrote: post #140
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?

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

No. Both suck.

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

#325

Post by P_I_Staker »

max47 wrote: post #152
kennywinker wrote: post #118

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…

Almost everyone I met (incl me when I was younger) who think that way never realized just how much food obese people eat at home. It's wayyy more than you think. They never tell the truth about it out of shame because they know how bad it looks to others.

It depends what you're talking about. Especially as people age, it doesn't always take as much as you'd think.

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

#326

Post by P_I_Staker »

choeger wrote: post #142
kennywinker wrote: post #118

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…

It's unhealthy and they can change it. While there are many people that have a comparatively harder time to retain a healthy weight, no one has to be obese. A small minority might find it so hard to not become obese that they simply cannot manage it, but that fact should not dominate public discourse and act as an excuse for everyone. More importantly, obesity is contagious. You give it to your kids and family. If yo…

> A small minority might find it so hard to not become obese that they simply cannot manage it, but that fact should not dominate public discourse and act as an excuse for everyone

I think the opposite is true, though I don't have statistics in front of me. Obesity traditionally had low rates of recovery. A huge percentage can never seem to figure it out.

The situation looks so grim that doctors were pushing to stop treating it as a "choice". I recall it being controversial, but somewhat agreeing with that perspective. Looking at a condition where people "want" to change, but almost always fail, it appears to look more like an incurable disease, than something that can easily be fixed with "discipline".

What's the point of guilt tripping people when the results are so consistently bad? I know there may have been some breakthroughs since then.

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

#327

Post by P_I_Staker »

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 like to eat healthy. It's extremely impractical unless you constantly cook, and do so the "hard way", with fewer shortcuts.

Yes, there's "less bad" options, like not eating your whole meal, and/or buying "fake health" food.

Healthy convenience food is very hard to come by and the unhealthy stuff is everywhere.

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

#328

Post by noslenwerdna »

CharlesW wrote: post #287
noslenwerdna wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, "obesity is healthy" is a strawman That simply isn't true. Just look into the "Health at Every Size" movement. There are some reasonable ideas there, like destigmatizing it as you mentioned. But there are also some harmful and ridiculous ideas prevalent in that movement - namely that "weight loss should not be a health goal". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_at_Every_Size

IMHO you have a low-generosity reading of the article you linked to, which says that this approach " de-emphasises weight loss as a health goal", and that "the basic premise of HAES is that 'well-being and healthy habits are more important than any number on the scale'". This lines up with my experience. One can do things like the Potato Diet to lose 100 pounds fairly quickly, but it's definitely not a healthy way to…

I don't think my reading is that low on generosity. The founder of the movement wrote an article called "More people should be fat."

There are certainly bad diets out there, but they aren't just opposed to bad diets. It's simply not possible to be healthy at any size

Fat people should not be bullied, but normalizing obesity is actively harmful to the public health. It's like normalizing smoking.

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

#329

Post by 29083011397778 »

leidenfrost wrote: post #262
irrational wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, I made a comment to a non-obese 20 something year old about how it is unhealthy to be obese. They went absolutely ballistic saying that I was fat-shaming and that you can’t say obesity is unhealthy.

Many fat shamers use t Health as an excuse to allow themselves to treat fat people like shit. Unfortunately getting into that argument is a minefield. Just let them be adults and manager their life as they please. At one point they might becone fed up with life as a fat person and they'll make the effort. And it they don't, well, there are people who smoke from teenage years all the way to the grave But, either eay,…

> But, either eay, people dont humiliate smokers the way they do with fat people

No, we just tax the shit out of tobacco, exclude them from certain insurance plans, blame and shame them about smoking indoors or inside vehicles, and tell smokers to go huddle outside and off to the side, away from doors, windows, and air intakes, while they do the thing we don't like.

Or were you thinking of air travel, where the difference between a smoker and a non-smoker is either negligible (because they aren't currently smoking), or completely excludes the smoker from the activity (because 16 hours in a plane is too long without a cigarette for them).

Humiliate them? Not often. But we sure as hell told them to take it someplace else; anyplace else, just not near the rest of us.

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

#330

Post by Buttons840 »

sorenjan wrote: post #249
Symmetry wrote: post #204

Earlier 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…

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.

Actually, it appears BMI is more accurate for women than for men. I'm guessing because men have more variability in their muscle mass.

Overall, I think BMI looks like a pretty useful metric considering how easy it is to measure. That would explain why it sticks around despite being frequently criticized.

See charts 2.A and 2.B in: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2877506/

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