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>were obese or overweight. Like 60% of America is obese or overweight, that is way over 200 Million Americans [1]. I don't understand why people try to use thi

>were obese or overweight. Like 60% of America is obese or overweight, that is way over 200 Million Americans [1]. I don't understand why people try to use this to downplay (I'm not saying you are) COVID. [1]https://www.healthline.com/health/obesity-facts#1 https://www.healthline.com/health/obesity-facts#1

hervature 6y ago
I don't think people are trying to downplay COVID but rather "up-play" the effects of obesity that so few people seem to care about
oreaway 6y ago
People downplay it because even when presented with these stats, they picture "overweight/obese" as a stereotypical "fat person" wearing size 55 pants and using a scooter to get around the grocery store. And they think "well I'm not fat, so I don't have anything to worry about." In reality, a significant portion of the people reading this comment probably are "overweight" without even realizing it. "Overweight" is classified by your BMI, and the threshold for "overweight" is much lower than most expect. If you are 5'6" and weigh 155 lbs, you are medically overweight. That's someone who wears size 31 pants and size small t-shirts. Not even close to your stereotypical "fat" person, but according to the statistics: overweight. edit to clarify: I intentionally put "overweight" in quotes to indicate that I am using the medical definition of "overweight", and I am not saying that someone who is 5'6" and 155 lbs is unhealthy, fat, or needs to lose weight. Someone who is 5'6" and 155 lbs is, IMO, on the fitter side of the spectrum, but according to the statistics, still "overweight".
- wnevets 6y ago
  Absolutely, these are medical definitions. People don't understand these definitions but are trying to play Doctor Scientist on the internet.
- graeme 6y ago
  Edit: I read OP’s argument the wrong way. So my comment below is based on a misapprehension. ———- This is foolish. BMI is used to estimate population averages. But waist measure is vastly better. Someone with a waist of 31 at 5’6” actually has close to ideal portions, if you’re talking about a man. (For women you need the hip measure too). That’s a waist to height ratio of about .47. A person with that waist probably has a high muscle mass + low body fat. Now, if the same person was 155, 5’6” and had a 34 inch waist, they are almost certainly overweight. https://trustyspotter.com/blog/perfect-male-body-measurements/ https://trustyspotter.com/blog/perfect-male-body-measurement... https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/Waist_Height https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/Waist_Height Both people will show up as “overweight” in population averages, which isn’t an issue as edge cases balance out over the whole population. But you’re talking as though such a person with a 31 inch waist should actually lose weight.
  - oreaway 6y ago
    >But you’re talking as though such a person with a 31 inch waist should actually lose weight. No, I'm not. I never said such a thing and I have no idea why you're building such a strawman. Waist measure has nothing to do with this story. This story is about COVID-19 comorbidities, of which being overweight (which is medically measured using BMI, not waist measures) is one. BMI is all that matters in this context. If you are 5'6" and 155 lbs, you are classified as overweight and thus are considered a high-risk person for COVID-19. That has nothing to do with "you should/should not lose weight". And the broader point is this: if you see any stats saying "most COVID-19 deaths were overweight people", you shouldn't feel any sense of "safety" because you think "well I'm not overweight, I wear size small!", because there's a good chance that a lot of those COVID deaths wore smalls, too.
    - graeme 6y ago
      > If you are 5'6" and 155 lbs, you are classified as overweight and thus are a high-risk person for COVID-19. That has nothing to do with "you should/should not lose weight". This is absolutely false. It is the adiposity that raises risk. High muscle mass is not a risk factor. You’re got an erratic view of what we mean by overweight: we mean excessively adipose. I took it as implied that you thought overweight people should lose weight for health reasons, but that isn’t the central point. BMI approximates population averages and is useful as such, but for an individual the correct question to ask is whether they are excessively adipose. Someone at 5’6” with a 31 inch waist and a weight of 155 is almost certainly not excessively adipose.
graeme 6y ago
The study in question is for kids though. The percent of children who are overweight or obese is smaller. Likewise pre-existing conditions are rarer in children.
0xdde 6y ago
So depending on the numbers, are we possibly seeing non-overweight people overrepresented in adverse outcomes relative to the population?
- irq11 6y ago
  No. The opposite. By the latest CDC numbers over 90% of people in hospitals with Covid have at least 2.6 serious illnesses, and mortality is disproportionately seen in the elderly and obese. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm
  - WalterGR 6y ago
    That’s not what that data says. The column you’re extrapolating that from is “Conditions Contributing to Deaths where COVID-19 was listed on the death certificate” not “Pre-existing conditions”.
    - irq11 6y ago
      It is what the data says. People didn’t suddenly get cancer and heart disease because of Covid. You may believe that these illnesses were exacerbated by the virus, but that doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority of the seriously ill were not healthy before catching the virus.
      - WalterGR 6y ago
        We can all read the data. * Influenza and pneumonia * Adult respiratory distress syndrome * Respiratory failure * Respiratory arrest * Cardiac arrest Et cetera et cetera et cetera. Are all the conditions listed in that table acute symptoms that contributed to COVID death? No. Is it a lie to say that every person in the US whose life ended due to COVID had on average 2.6 pre-existing conditions? Yes. Stop lying. but that doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority of the seriously ill were not healthy before catching the virus. 2.6 pre-existing conditions as you claimed above or, now, “vast majority of the seriously ill”? Give statistics that you can back up with data, along with definitions for “vast majority” and “seriously ill”, or you’re spreading dezinformatsia.
adventured 6y ago
The overweight block isn't much of a concern. The percentage of Americans in the overweight category hasn't changed since 1960 and there's little indication being overweight is nearly the danger that obesity is. It's almost exclusively the obesity group - which has exploded higher since the early 1980s - that is the concern. If you're 6ft (183cm) tall, you can be 185-220 pounds (~84-100kg) and you fall into the overweight group. That group has very little to fear from Covid due to weight, unless they have other serious health conditions. Being 10 or 15 pounds overweight isn't going to be a meaningful problem when dealing with Covid. If you're 80 or 100 pounds overweight - obese - that is going to be a major risk factor. The number of people killed just by Covid in the US in the overweight group, under the age of 75, is likely to be numbered sub 1,000.
- acituan 6y ago
  > That group has very little to fear from Covid due to weight, unless they have other serious health conditions. Being 10 or 15 pounds overweight isn't going to be a meaningful problem when dealing with Covid. If you're 80 or 100 pounds overweight - obese - that is going to be a major risk factor. Unless you have data on this, or an understanding of the mechanism of how weight and covid exactly interacts, this is mere speculation. It wasn’t intuitive to a lot of people that BMI would be a risk factor to begin with when first covid came up. We also don’t know if the interaction is linear or quadratic or a simple cutoff. I am not saying you are necessarily wrong, but I don’t think we have the basis for such confidence on these conclusions yet.

hervature 6y ago

I don't think people are trying to downplay COVID but rather "up-play" the effects of obesity that so few people seem to care about

oreaway 6y ago

People downplay it because even when presented with these stats, they picture "overweight/obese" as a stereotypical "fat person" wearing size 55 pants and using a scooter to get around the grocery store. And they think "well I'm not fat, so I don't have anything to worry about." In reality, a significant portion of the people reading this comment probably are "overweight" without even realizing it. "Overweight" is classified by your BMI, and the threshold for "overweight" is much lower than most expect. If you are 5'6" and weigh 155 lbs, you are medically overweight. That's someone who wears size 31 pants and size small t-shirts. Not even close to your stereotypical "fat" person, but according to the statistics: overweight. edit to clarify: I intentionally put "overweight" in quotes to indicate that I am using the medical definition of "overweight", and I am not saying that someone who is 5'6" and 155 lbs is unhealthy, fat, or needs to lose weight. Someone who is 5'6" and 155 lbs is, IMO, on the fitter side of the spectrum, but according to the statistics, still "overweight".

wnevets 6y ago
Absolutely, these are medical definitions. People don't understand these definitions but are trying to play Doctor Scientist on the internet.
graeme 6y ago
Edit: I read OP’s argument the wrong way. So my comment below is based on a misapprehension. ———- This is foolish. BMI is used to estimate population averages. But waist measure is vastly better. Someone with a waist of 31 at 5’6” actually has close to ideal portions, if you’re talking about a man. (For women you need the hip measure too). That’s a waist to height ratio of about .47. A person with that waist probably has a high muscle mass + low body fat. Now, if the same person was 155, 5’6” and had a 34 inch waist, they are almost certainly overweight. https://trustyspotter.com/blog/perfect-male-body-measurements/ https://trustyspotter.com/blog/perfect-male-body-measurement... https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/Waist_Height https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/Waist_Height Both people will show up as “overweight” in population averages, which isn’t an issue as edge cases balance out over the whole population. But you’re talking as though such a person with a 31 inch waist should actually lose weight.
- oreaway 6y ago
  >But you’re talking as though such a person with a 31 inch waist should actually lose weight. No, I'm not. I never said such a thing and I have no idea why you're building such a strawman. Waist measure has nothing to do with this story. This story is about COVID-19 comorbidities, of which being overweight (which is medically measured using BMI, not waist measures) is one. BMI is all that matters in this context. If you are 5'6" and 155 lbs, you are classified as overweight and thus are considered a high-risk person for COVID-19. That has nothing to do with "you should/should not lose weight". And the broader point is this: if you see any stats saying "most COVID-19 deaths were overweight people", you shouldn't feel any sense of "safety" because you think "well I'm not overweight, I wear size small!", because there's a good chance that a lot of those COVID deaths wore smalls, too.
  - graeme 6y ago
    > If you are 5'6" and 155 lbs, you are classified as overweight and thus are a high-risk person for COVID-19. That has nothing to do with "you should/should not lose weight". This is absolutely false. It is the adiposity that raises risk. High muscle mass is not a risk factor. You’re got an erratic view of what we mean by overweight: we mean excessively adipose. I took it as implied that you thought overweight people should lose weight for health reasons, but that isn’t the central point. BMI approximates population averages and is useful as such, but for an individual the correct question to ask is whether they are excessively adipose. Someone at 5’6” with a 31 inch waist and a weight of 155 is almost certainly not excessively adipose.

graeme 6y ago

The study in question is for kids though. The percent of children who are overweight or obese is smaller. Likewise pre-existing conditions are rarer in children.

0xdde 6y ago

So depending on the numbers, are we possibly seeing non-overweight people overrepresented in adverse outcomes relative to the population?

irq11 6y ago
No. The opposite. By the latest CDC numbers over 90% of people in hospitals with Covid have at least 2.6 serious illnesses, and mortality is disproportionately seen in the elderly and obese. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm
- WalterGR 6y ago
  That’s not what that data says. The column you’re extrapolating that from is “Conditions Contributing to Deaths where COVID-19 was listed on the death certificate” not “Pre-existing conditions”.
  - irq11 6y ago
    It is what the data says. People didn’t suddenly get cancer and heart disease because of Covid. You may believe that these illnesses were exacerbated by the virus, but that doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority of the seriously ill were not healthy before catching the virus.
    - WalterGR 6y ago
      We can all read the data. * Influenza and pneumonia * Adult respiratory distress syndrome * Respiratory failure * Respiratory arrest * Cardiac arrest Et cetera et cetera et cetera. Are all the conditions listed in that table acute symptoms that contributed to COVID death? No. Is it a lie to say that every person in the US whose life ended due to COVID had on average 2.6 pre-existing conditions? Yes. Stop lying. but that doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority of the seriously ill were not healthy before catching the virus. 2.6 pre-existing conditions as you claimed above or, now, “vast majority of the seriously ill”? Give statistics that you can back up with data, along with definitions for “vast majority” and “seriously ill”, or you’re spreading dezinformatsia.

adventured 6y ago

The overweight block isn't much of a concern. The percentage of Americans in the overweight category hasn't changed since 1960 and there's little indication being overweight is nearly the danger that obesity is. It's almost exclusively the obesity group - which has exploded higher since the early 1980s - that is the concern. If you're 6ft (183cm) tall, you can be 185-220 pounds (~84-100kg) and you fall into the overweight group. That group has very little to fear from Covid due to weight, unless they have other serious health conditions. Being 10 or 15 pounds overweight isn't going to be a meaningful problem when dealing with Covid. If you're 80 or 100 pounds overweight - obese - that is going to be a major risk factor. The number of people killed just by Covid in the US in the overweight group, under the age of 75, is likely to be numbered sub 1,000.

acituan 6y ago
> That group has very little to fear from Covid due to weight, unless they have other serious health conditions. Being 10 or 15 pounds overweight isn't going to be a meaningful problem when dealing with Covid. If you're 80 or 100 pounds overweight - obese - that is going to be a major risk factor. Unless you have data on this, or an understanding of the mechanism of how weight and covid exactly interacts, this is mere speculation. It wasn’t intuitive to a lot of people that BMI would be a risk factor to begin with when first covid came up. We also don’t know if the interaction is linear or quadratic or a simple cutoff. I am not saying you are necessarily wrong, but I don’t think we have the basis for such confidence on these conclusions yet.