“Healthy obesity” doesn’t exist. It is unequivocally bad for you • Hacker News Board

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

#391

Post by oska » Tue, Mar 14, 2023, 9:33 AM UTC

iLoveOncall wrote: post #206

mancerayder wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can cease buying sugary foods and snacks like chips at the supermarket when you shop. You can explore swapping macros a bit so there's a bias in favor of eggs and fish and other protein. You can try to cut down eating between meals. The idea of Predestination with regards to eating needs to stop. If there is a psychological addiction then that's the part to be addressed, it's a valid concern. I see what people ea…

None of this matters when it comes to pure weight. You can eat the most healthy diet in the world and still be massively obese. On the other hand I have successfully lost 100 lbs in 6 months in the past, while eating fast food daily. I won't discuss the "healthiness" aspect of it, but losing weight is ONLY a matter of calories.

> You can eat the most healthy diet in the world and still be massively obese.

Strongly doubt this assertion

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

#392

Post by jodrellblank » Tue, Mar 14, 2023, 1:49 PM UTC

thefz wrote: post #361

jodrellblank wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment unpacks into a whole world of ideas around obesity which get pushed under the rug by just saying it's "your choice" and you need "discipline" and "diets" to fix it. Most thin people don't stay thin by discipline - or not much discipline. Most thin people don't stay thin by team sports and weightlifting. Most thin people aren't going on diets, ever. Most thin people aren't "choosing" to be thin, they have…

So to sum it up, it is never an individual's fault, but rather the environment acting on him.

Trying to frame it in terms of "fault" and "excuses" is petty and unproductive. If 9/10 startups fail, is it "your fault" if your startup fails? You could have picked a better idea, executed faster, gained more skill, done more product-market fit testing, pivoted sooner, charged more, marketed more, AHA! Gotcha! Here's where it's YOUR FAULT and now we've correctly allocated FAULT, we can ... what?

Imagine if you only learned from the experience that you need more revenue sooner instead of using the most fun tech, but you hadn't had it beaten into you that it was YOUR FAULT, that would be ... unfair, right? We'd all be missing an opportunity to put you in your place which you clearly deserve by circular reasoning of being at fault.

Plus it makes us feel better because if it's your fault, that means you weren't crushed by enormous imbalanced forces so that won't happen to us. If nobody can resist the $4Bn/year CocaCola advertising spend on every media platform going, maybe I can't either. But if you're just weak, then I maybe can.

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

#393

Post by psychphysic » Tue, Mar 14, 2023, 9:55 PM UTC

paulmd wrote: post #373

psychphysic wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That last one is a tricky, people shouldn't be bullied..it's demotivational. I think it's better to stick to that, and just drop the term 'fat-shaming'.

I think changing the name doesn't take away the hate at the core here. People would be as fine with "fat-bullying" as they are with "fat-shaming", they see it as somewhere between "their social right" and "actually helping the person". It is the same as changing "retard" to "mentally challenged" or "handicapped" to "disabled"... the next term just becomes equally toxic because you haven't changed the actual stigma, j…

The stigma is fine. It's the bullying that's a problem.

But recent efforts have been focused on blurring the lines here.

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

#394

Post by jhanschoo » Wed, Mar 15, 2023, 12:46 AM UTC

scoofy wrote: post #388

jhanschoo wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ca…

The first link describes heart problems perhaps arising from intense exercise, which is a different thing that heart problems arising from muscle mass.

The second describes the same thing:

> Several middle-aged and older men trying to improve their physical fitness by weightlifting have presented for repair of severe mitral regurgitation, some of whom stated that they remembered feeling a pop in the chest while weightlifting, which was the start of their dyspnea.

> Arterial BP increases most during weightlifting that is accompanied by mechanical compression of blood vessels (such as when bent forward at the waist or squatting) and when accompanied by a Valsalva maneuver.

Neither of these papers link them to muscle mass but to the stress of high-intensity exercise itself, which I have already addressed.

I agree that we should not assume things, but in the lack of cursory evidence, I would still stand by my argument that in the normal case where muscle mass is formed from working out, such workout stresses and modifies the cardiovascular system to such an extent the result is a body that is more than capable of handling whatever stress that muscle at rest imposes on the heart.

Once again I reiterate my cursory evidence to my argument, that athletes' cardiovascular system are generally so much more efficient and less taxed than the general population that their hearts beat at 3/4 the average heart rate.

It seems like athlete's heart syndrome is a benign condition.

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

#395

Post by paulmd » Wed, Mar 15, 2023, 5:41 PM UTC

psychphysic wrote: post #393

paulmd wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think changing the name doesn't take away the hate at the core here. People would be as fine with "fat-bullying" as they are with "fat-shaming", they see it as somewhere between "their social right" and "actually helping the person". It is the same as changing "retard" to "mentally challenged" or "handicapped" to "disabled"... the next term just becomes equally toxic because you haven't changed the actual stigma, j…

The stigma is fine. It's the bullying that's a problem. But recent efforts have been focused on blurring the lines here.

This is basically "heritage not hate" but for a socially-acceptable target. You're saying racist opinions and discourse are fine as long as you don't act racist.

The stigma causes the hate, they're effectively the same thing (I used them interchangeably) and leads directly to adverse actions against those individuals.

And as I said above - the argument generally shifts at that point to "it's good for them to be attacked, maybe it'll motivate them". Because again, it's just a socially-acceptable vector for hate. We've gradually run out of other forms like racism and sexism, for a while it was homophobia (and the argument was that was a choice too, so it was fine to attack), but we'll always have fat people.

Stop attacking, hating, "stigmatizing", whatever you want to call it, based on traits. It's all "isms" and 50 years ago it is the same argument used to defend racism. Just be civil and treat people like human beings, it's not that complicated.

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

#396

Post by timje1 » Thu, Mar 16, 2023, 10:22 AM UTC

Drblessing wrote: post #357

copperx wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Exercise is 100% the best bet to lose weight. For a simple empirical study, ask every person you meet/know that is fit, and nearly everyone will say they exercise. Specifically, cardio. If you're goal is to lose weight, you shouldn't touch weights until your BMI < 22. Just run or swim a few times a week.

I don't think that's as universally agreed upon as you claim. I know of plenty of women who struggled to lose weight via diet and cardio, and then turned things round when they started eating high protein and lifting weights.

Diet + cardio with no strength work can put people into 'gotta make it through this famine' mode, where their metabolism slows right down to eke out the stores as long as possible.

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

#397

Post by pizza234 » Fri, Mar 17, 2023, 9:55 AM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #217

pizza234 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it such a strange idea that there are as many people who are naturally thin as there are that are naturally fat? [...] Why should they feel bad about their body? Because naturally thin people, and the opposite case, are outliers. There are very few people, especially in the 40s, that can eat a lot and still remain thin.

...and the reason we should make them feel bad is? Setting aside the fact that you've conceded that you don't know if someone is fat "by choice" or because they are an outlier, so you're ok with making people who are fat because of natural reasons feel bad as casualties in your noble quest to make people who are fat "by choice" feel bad. Do we shame people for the health risk of going skiing? It's a well know health…

> ...and the reason we should make them feel bad is?

> in your noble quest to make people who are fat "by choice" feel bad.

If you're taking this personally, I don't shame anybody, and I don't spend time on "quests" centered on other people.

I agree actually with you that people are responsible for their choice, and shaming them (as in "you're fat, ha-ha") is not a proper attitude.

Regarding fat excess in itself (that is, disassociated from a given person), on modern times _and_ in western society, while in principle it may be risky as other activities, it's on a very large scale, so it's important to consider it as a serious problem.