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> Being 'underweight' is associated with significant excess death; being 'overweight' is associated with a lower death rate than 'normal' BMI: This is nonsense
by proxyon 5y ago
> Being 'underweight' is associated with significant excess death; being 'overweight' is associated with a lower death rate than 'normal' BMI:
This is nonsense. In many medical deaths such as cancer (and especially since euthanasia isn't available) the person dies by slowly withering away. One of the first things that happens is that they become skinny and frail. That doesn't associate underweightedness with mortality. It intentionally draws a false correlation.
- teachingassist 5y agoThis criticism is apparently quite reasonable. You can also observe that being underweight is correlated with smoking. [Edited to add: this article explicitly considers the link to cancer, and rejects it, https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2458-14-371 https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1... ] However, it doesn't explain why being 'overweight' BMI consistently proves to be protective against death, despite it being so stigmatised that it affects quality of medical care.
- proxyon 5y ago> However, it doesn't explain why being 'overweight' BMI consistently proves to be protective against death I don't see how the "protective of death" conclusion is able to be maintained when it was determined by comparing the mortality of overweight people to frail and dying old people and cancer patients. The reality is that it's the opposite. It's well known that being overweight damages the organs and makes a person more susceptible to dozens of diseases.