4 ms·

These numbers aren’t shocking. Many people are “casually” fat, meaning they carry an extra 30-40lbs around their gut. Probably accumulated slowly by 2-3lbs a ye

by dexwiz 9y ago

These numbers aren’t shocking. Many people are “casually” fat, meaning they carry an extra 30-40lbs around their gut. Probably accumulated slowly by 2-3lbs a year. They don’t fit the classic image of an obese person but they are obese according to BMI. I moved to SF which is a relatively fit city. Going back home in the Midwest I am shocked by the number of people who are overweight. Fat is normalized there. It wasn’t until I lived in a health conscious area and checked my own BMI that I realized how skewed my image of a healthy person was. In the Midwest if you are active you are considered healthy, even if you are overweight. It’s not until you are 100lbs overweight are you considered fat. And this doesn’t even touch the HAES mentality.

yodsanklai 9y ago
As a non-american, I'm wondering how a fit person is considered in the midwest? Is it seen as a good trait or rather something odd?
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
  I live in Missouri. Response to fit people is highly variable, and seems to depend on the family. Some fat families here seem to see fit people with jealousy, not understanding how they stay so thin. Others just don't seem to care about their obesity and think of normal sized people as abnormal, like their sense of what is normal is completely shifted. Yet others are ashamed of their obesity, yet none of their attempts to change seem to work. Mating behavior here seems to follow the norm. Fat people tend to date/marry fat people, and healthy people mostly stick with other healthy people.
- tdb7893 9y ago
  As a fit Midwesterner it's seen as good (and it made dating easier). There are plenty of fit Midwesterners so being fit in the Midwest isn't weird at all in my experience
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  It's not necessarily odd - obesity rates are high, but not so high that a healthy weight is exceptional. Being generally muscular or trim isn't a negative, and probably isn't going to get anyone dismissed as a fitness nut. That said, an average to low-normal BMI can certainly get comments. I'm smack in the middle of the healthy BMI range, and not exceptionally muscular or anything else that would distort that. Living in and visiting friends in flyover country I get comments like "you're too skinny", "you need to eat more", and so on. No one is particularly judging me, there's just a shifted sense of average where BMI ~21 feels like the low end of the range. (And of course they're not exactly wrong; eating Midwestern food and living in a driving-centric suburb had the predictable effect on my weight, so on some level thinner people there are behaving unusually.)
kstenerud 9y ago
I've lived in San Francisco and I've lived in Europe, and while SF isn't quite as bad as other places in the USA (for example, Philadelphia), I was still shocked at how fat everyone was.

by dexwiz 9y ago

yodsanklai 9y ago

As a non-american, I'm wondering how a fit person is considered in the midwest? Is it seen as a good trait or rather something odd?

TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
I live in Missouri. Response to fit people is highly variable, and seems to depend on the family. Some fat families here seem to see fit people with jealousy, not understanding how they stay so thin. Others just don't seem to care about their obesity and think of normal sized people as abnormal, like their sense of what is normal is completely shifted. Yet others are ashamed of their obesity, yet none of their attempts to change seem to work. Mating behavior here seems to follow the norm. Fat people tend to date/marry fat people, and healthy people mostly stick with other healthy people.
tdb7893 9y ago
As a fit Midwesterner it's seen as good (and it made dating easier). There are plenty of fit Midwesterners so being fit in the Midwest isn't weird at all in my experience
Bartweiss 9y ago
It's not necessarily odd - obesity rates are high, but not so high that a healthy weight is exceptional. Being generally muscular or trim isn't a negative, and probably isn't going to get anyone dismissed as a fitness nut. That said, an average to low-normal BMI can certainly get comments. I'm smack in the middle of the healthy BMI range, and not exceptionally muscular or anything else that would distort that. Living in and visiting friends in flyover country I get comments like "you're too skinny", "you need to eat more", and so on. No one is particularly judging me, there's just a shifted sense of average where BMI ~21 feels like the low end of the range. (And of course they're not exactly wrong; eating Midwestern food and living in a driving-centric suburb had the predictable effect on my weight, so on some level thinner people there are behaving unusually.)

kstenerud 9y ago

I've lived in San Francisco and I've lived in Europe, and while SF isn't quite as bad as other places in the USA (for example, Philadelphia), I was still shocked at how fat everyone was.