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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

#381

Post by wizofaus »

polio wrote: post #105
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?

I think shame can be powerful for many people, but it has negative side-effects that don't seem to be necessary. Obesity also has large genetic and environmental components[1], as well. Shame can make it hard for people to seek help, since the shame can be internalized to the degree that they don't feel like their life is worth fixing. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/28/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas...

Not just that - the fear of being told their health issues are due to their weight (regardless of whether that's true) and the consequent feelings of shame can discourage many people from seeking medical help of any sort, often until it's too late. But it would be just as irresponsible for a medical professional to tell a patient their obesity is healthy as it is to immediately attribute whatever medical complaint they might have to excess weight (which, from what I've heard, still happens a lot).

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

#382

Post by wizofaus »

swatcoder wrote: post #62
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.

It’s because American society doesn’t let being unhealthy be an affirmative choice. You either need to demonstrate some kind of shame for your unhealthiness or some kind rationale that explains how its actually healthy. The honest facts that “I like to eat tasty good” and “I don’t really enjoy too much physical activity” are only permissible if you also say “and I can’t help myself” or “and it’s actually not unhealth…

It might not be the only thing that matters, but once you lose your health, it's very hard to get much enjoyment out of anything else in life. Our bodies remind us constantly in no uncertain terms when they're not functioning well. I can't imagine anything I'd willingly sacrifice my health for, except in some extreme case like saving the lives of loved ones.

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

#383

Post by vixen99 »

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.

The literature on the relationship between BMI and mortality is not conclusive except for a BMI > 30. Generally it seems that lower mortality is associated with a body mass index of 20-25. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1000367

However there are studies which find lowest mortality for the slightly overweight with BMI https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/1555137 and https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2022.8577...

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

#384

Post by frumper »

huijzer wrote: post #143
stametseater wrote: post #114

Earlier 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.

It's probably the difference in looking at weight versus calories. A cauliflower is, on average, 0.7-0.9 kg (1.5-2 pounds) and provides about 25 calories. A McDonalds burger is, on average, 0.2 kg (0.441 pounds) with about 250 calories. The cauliflower currently costs about 3 euros (yes, you read that right) in the Netherlands while a burger costs around 7 euros. So, calories per euro is 8 for the cauliflower and 35…

I want to see this mythical almost half pound burger that is only 250 calories. The "hamburger" that is 250 calories has a patty less than 2 ounces, and hardly anything on it. I doubt the bun weights 1/4 pound.

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

#385

Post by AlwaysRock »

kennywinker wrote: post #102
AlwaysRock wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whataboutism 101

The only thing bordering on whataboutism is my comment about being underweight. Talking about obesity bring up a lot of extreme emotions in people, and people love to say "it's just about it being unhealthy" but then don't have those extreme emotions when thinking about underweight people. So it's not whataboutism, it's relevant context. My two other points, anti-fat bias, and the harm of trying to change your body,…

When someone is talking about one issue and you bring up another issue... That is whataboutism. Being overweight is unhealthy. Being underweight is unhealthy. This article is about being overweight. Bringing up something else entirely and ignoring what the article is about is whataboutism.

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

#387

Post by firecall »

somsak2 wrote: post #254
csa wrote: post #244

Earlier 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…

So two examples of individuals that are using huge amounts of anabolic steroids is "illustrative of the weakness of bmi?" Give me a break. All measures are going to have edge cases. And by the way, those two guys actually are pretty unhealthy -- your body is not made to carry around that much weight.

Your body doesn’t really carry the weight though, when it’s muscles.

Your skeleton is there to give the muscles something to form around. Your muscles are supporting the body, not the other way around.

It’s not like your body has to drag around muscles like it’s a burden…

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

#388

Post by scoofy »

jhanschoo wrote: post #355
scoofy wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we assume that fat is bad for you, but muscle is always good for you. The blood necessary to maintain excessive muscle is still excessive to normal humans, and may put strain on the heart. Only our skin grows with our muscles, other organs do not grow in tandem. I've always thought that while BMI is crude, it still is reasonable for measuring metabolic syndrome, considering that many of the things associated w…

Do you have anecdotes or other evidence of someone experiencing heart issues because they were too muscular? It seems to me that in the usual case where a person develops muscle mass by working out, this isn't a problem because whatever "blood necessary to maintain excessive muscle" is negligible in the face of the body adapting to improve the cardiovascular system in order to serve muscular oxygen needs during worko…

My argument is that we should not assume that extra mass from muscle does not impose similar health problems from fat. If we are going to say that, it should be demonstrated. A fit person doesn't need to weight 30+lbs more than standard overweight section of the BMI. If they do, they will be a very non-standard human.

Here are some things I found in a brief glance at google scholar. There appears to be a condition called Athlete's heart, but I dunno:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26187713/

https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/jom-2020-0046...

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

#389

Post by oska »

kennywinker wrote: post #118
psychphysic wrote: post #96

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…

> 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…

Intriguingly, it seems that the vast majority of the population of North Korea are 'naturally thin' and virtually every young person you see in footage of 1960s USA too.

IOW, 'naturally thin' is a bogus idea.

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

#390

Post by oska »

david-gpu wrote: post #213
gadders wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People, in the long term, eat as much as they need to not feel hungry. Whether they are slim or overweight. Asking people to ear less than they are eating now is thus asking them to be perpetually hungry. It can be done, even for a year or two if they have willpower, but eventually they will get sick of being cold, tired and irritated all the time --because that is what chronic hunger does to you-- and they will go b…

Getting to explore what it means to be 'hungry', i.e. asking yourself "Is this feeling I need to eat habit or actual real need?" is a large part of controlling/regulating food intake. This 'exploration' used to be engendered by religious practices of fasting and also, times of food scarcity. We don't have either as widespread experiences these days, so the only people who explore their hunger and eating habits are mostly people with a drive to develop awareness around their bodies and who work to identify and then pull themselves out of 'bad habits'.
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