Comments on: “Overweight” still doesn’t mean “unhealthy,” and related fantasies

By: misscripchick

misscripchick — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 18:41:40 +0000

“one of the things that pisses me off most about the weight discussion is when fat-pride takes the form of thin-hate.”

agreed, i can understand where the feelings come from as well but it’s important to recognize that thin women also receive a tremendous amount of patriarchial images regarding their body.

By: Anna

Anna — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:23:44 +0000

Now this interesting. You are exactly right that thin people (women) have body issues – yes, such as bust size. Which, of course, can lead to cosmetic surgeries, etc.

Another thought that occurs to me reading this is the very real problem of obesity in children. Largely due to diet & excersize (I can’t spell) issues. I hope parents won’t take this study & use it as an excuse to not address the problems of obesity with their children.

Just a thought.

By: Cara

Cara — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 12:57:37 +0000

Um, because BMI is figured out by weight versus height. It doesn’t take muscle mass into consideration. Muscle weighs more than fat. People with athletic builds are going to weigh more than unfit people with only moderate amounts of fat. “Built” guys and “chubby” guys can very easily weight the same amount, and the BMI doesn’t give a shit. Which is one of many, many reasons why it’s completely and utterly useless. Read Ran’s first comment.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 08:50:50 +0000

I think most people with very athletic physiques, very little body fat, and six-pack abs were probably in this study’s “overweight” group.

how the hell do you figure that?

By: Ran

Ran — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 03:59:11 +0000

Re: “However, what the new studies seem to show is that the healthy ideal isn’t necessarily the very athletic physique with very little body fat and six-pack abs […]“: I’m not sure that’s true. The studies don’t compare different kinds of overweight people (e.g. by percent body fat), and I think most people with very athletic physiques, very little body fat, and six-pack abs were probably in this study’s “overweight” group.

By: RachelPhilPa

RachelPhilPa — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 01:26:24 +0000

that perhaps the healthy ideal needs to be adjusted upwards 10 or 20 pounds.

Or, even better, using measures other than weight to determine health.

Despite my BMI being towards the bottom of the so-called “normal” range, it’s pretty clear to me that I am quite a bit less healthy (for a variety of reasons) than many, if not most, supposedly “overweight” people.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 00:50:26 +0000

Not the first study to show this. This specific study looked at specific reasons why the different groups were dying, breaking it down by causes of death, not just overall mortality. Some of the findings were not surprising, such as people who were obese having a higher rate of dying from heart disease (not a big surprise).

The overall death from cancer in the obese population was not greater than the regular population, which was a bit of a surprise, and contradicts some earlier studies, but the reasons for this was that some cancers which are higher in the obese population are balanced by other cancers which are lower for the obese population, so the net effect was washed out. It’s also not surprising that the underweight had a higher mortality rate; they died more from everything except for heart-disease and cancer. This obviously has a lot of significance for public health initiatives.

There’s been a lot of effort recently trying to reverse the trends of increasing weight in Western industrialized countries in general, and we probably still need to do that, considering that the number of obese people has been increasing over the last few decades which correlates with an increase in heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes. However, what the new studies seem to show is that the healthy ideal isn’t necessarily the very athletic physique with very little body fat and six-pack abs – that perhaps the healthy ideal needs to be adjusted upwards 10 or 20 pounds.

By: Ran

Ran — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 22:43:38 +0000

In addition to everything you say (pretty much all of which I agree with), it’s silly for the article to treat an “overweight” BMI as indicating “chubbiness.” BMI only reflects mass and height. One of my best friends is categorized as “obese” by BMI, because his ingredients list includes a few hundred pounds of muscle. This might well increase his risk of cardiovascular disease (he thinks it does), but it doesn’t make him “fat.” Conversely, I’m considered normal-weight by BMI, but I’m definitely mostly blubber.

Conflating medical information — even scientifically dubious medical information like the BMI — with appearance is simply a bad idea, because it encourages people to consider their to be medically meaningful, which it simply isn’t. (Appearance might correlate with medically meaningful statistics, but it itself is not one.)