8 ms·

What interests me is how anybody could ever come to believe otherwise. The contrary belief flies in the face of all common sense, popular experience and medic

What interests me is how anybody could ever come to believe otherwise. The contrary belief flies in the face of all common sense, popular experience and medical science. It seems to come entirely from propaganda on social media telling fat people what they want to believe.

vixen99 4y ago
The literature on the relationship between BMI and mortality is not conclusive except for a BMI > 30. Generally it seems that lower mortality is associated with a body mass index of 20-25. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1000367 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1000367 However there are studies which find lowest mortality for the slightly overweight with BMI < 30. For instance: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/1555137 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/1555137 and https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2022.857787/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2022.8577...
blackoil 4y ago
It is a reaction to obese people being butt of jokes and now majority becoming obese. If you can't change lifestyle you can use contra views as coping mechanisms. Also, like anti-science believing in snake oils and flat earth over the internet you can live in an echo chamber custom made for you.
nimbius 4y ago
dont forget multinational processed food and snack vendors benefit immensely from the perception that hyperconsumption of sugar salt and fat is normal and good, and that your obesity is a shameless wonder to cherish unto the grave. look at the sons and daughters of branded food conglomerate moguls and their top executives. youll likely find them quite trim.
- stametseater 4y ago
  Clothing companies have also played a role in normalizing obesity with advertisements featuring obese people, often accompanied by pro-fat propaganda slogans like "healthy at any size". They do this out of pure greed; fat people have money and buy clothes, so it makes business sense to advertise products to them. But these ads are bad for public health because they promote unhealthy standards as normal and okay.
wanderingbort 4y ago
Simply put, it’s an enabling belief. Being obese isn’t a root cause. It is a symptom of something else. Particularly, when it is a symptom of depression, believing in “healthy obesity” can be enabling even if it’s not the truth. That person (not statistic) needs to see themselves as healthy and loved to have a chance at being healthy. Telling them to eat better or exercise is thinking about yourself in a generic version of their circumstances rather than them in their actual circumstances.
- stametseater 4y ago
  > That person (not statistic) needs to see themselves as healthy and loved to have a chance at being healthy. I don't buy it. Tolerance towards fatness has risen since the 80s, as have weights; both have gone up at the same time. The more tolerance our society has for fatness, the fatter people get. If more tolerance for fat people were the key to getting people to lose weight then there should be an inverse relationship between the two, but that just hasn't happened.
  - wanderingbort 4y ago
    I'm just going off the research, you can buy whatever you want. "Health obesity" isn't about staying obese, it is about shifting social stigmas as they seem to contribute (paradoxically) to obesity[1]. Why is this something you feel the need to support publicly and vocally instead of letting people's health be between them and their doctors (who also need to work on stigmas[2])? The more society makes this a social issue, the worse off people will be when external stressors land [3]. [1] https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-018-1116-5 https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s1291... [2] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/oby.23266 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/oby.23266 [3] https://academic.oup.com/abm/article/54/10/738/5901900 https://academic.oup.com/abm/article/54/10/738/5901900
- infogulch 4y ago
  Lying to people about an objective perspective of their current state of being is good for them? Feeling better in the moment just enables people to ignore the root cause and thus fail to make progress. They need truth that their current state sucks, hope that it could be better, and to recognize that their own agency has an outsized effect on their future. And maybe they could use some help breaking down their problems into smaller more achievable steps.
lm28469 4y ago
It's easier to keep indulging in your vices when people tell you they're healthy, hear it or repeat it enough and you'll end up believing it yourself
rhaway84773 4y ago
I think there are several reasons: 1. Historically being fat was considered a sign of good health. Of course, this was during times of massive food scarcity and the definition of fat was probably very different from what we consider fat today. 2. Massive amounts of money involved in telling people to eat/drink more, and then spend more money in gyms and taking pills to lose that weight. As opposed to just eating less and then living normal healthy active lives. There’s not much money in the latter. 3. People wanting to stop fat-shaming (which is also unequivocally bad…fat shaming only makes it harder for people to lose weight), trying to convince other people that someone being fat does not make them bad, quickly morphing into being fat is good.
- dudul 4y ago
  I'm interested in 3. Is there any research or data about that? I do not encourage fat shaming at all, but I can also imagine that in some cases shame may be a powerful motivator for some people. Is there hard data showing that it actually makes it harder?
  - shmoejoe 4y ago
    What I’ve always heard is that if it’s something someone can’t fix in 5 minutes they probably already know and you telling them isn’t helping Now it’s a different story if you’re willing to work with them daily to help them lose weight or something similar. But just telling your friend “he your fat, it’s bad for you fix it” will only hurt
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    Shame implies a personal failing, which readily translates into feelings of guilt and helplessness. It is not at all a constructive approach. The "healthy obesity" thing is the pendulum flying to the opposite end of the spectrum: unconditional support turned into acceptance and promotion of what we know to not be true.
    - stametseater 4y ago
      Alternatively: "Shame implies a personal failing, which readily translates into recognizing and correcting those personal failings." In the 20th century, Americans fat shamed each other and were less fat. Today in Asia, people still fat shame each other and they're a lot less fat than Americans.
swatcoder 4y ago
It’s because American society doesn’t let being unhealthy be an affirmative choice. You either need to demonstrate some kind of shame for your unhealthiness or some kind rationale that explains how its actually healthy. The honest facts that “I like to eat tasty good” and “I don’t really enjoy too much physical activity” are only permissible if you also say “and I can’t help myself” or “and it’s actually not unhealthy.” It’s a social dance that makes people hide the personal truth that health isn’t the only thing that matters in life.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  It might not be the only thing that matters, but once you lose your health, it's very hard to get much enjoyment out of anything else in life. Our bodies remind us constantly in no uncertain terms when they're not functioning well. I can't imagine anything I'd willingly sacrifice my health for, except in some extreme case like saving the lives of loved ones.
- wkat4242 4y ago
  It isn't the only thing in life of course. If you're healthy but living on the street it's not a very nice life. For me being obese is not really a choice. It's just really hard to do anything about it, especially because I tend to overeat when I encounter stress in life. And I'm not wired with the discipline to fix it. I often go on diets but they never last. Also, living alone cooking is a real chore and there's not enough ready made healthy food. And in terms of exercise I really hate team sports and mindless weight lifting. I do hike a bit though when the season permits. Are these excuses? Sure but if I could have changed it I would have.
  - jodrellblank 4y ago
    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 nature and nurture and culture and environment where thin is the result. 1950 had 10% of Americans being obese. Now 35% are. Has there been a decrease in weightlifting since then? A paucity of dieting? No, surely both of those are on record highs with gym memberships and Weightwatchers being so profitable. What about a collapse of discipline - through one of the most productive times in human history, today with lowest unemployment in 20 years? Like: car dependent suburbia. If you don't grow up walking to the shops with your parents, walking to the park to play, walking to school, cycling to school, walking or cycling to work; if your only exposure to movement is mandatory exercise at school which is unpleasant, what does that do to your lifelong views? If your environment doesn't have anywhere interesting to walk to, or any sidewalk to walk on, what does that do? Like: If your parents and family never moved except to get to the car, what kind of early mental expectations does that set you up with? Children try to imitate their parents, if the parents alway groan and complain about having to walk anywhere, that's some kind of lesson. Like: Livestrong.com says "The average restaurant meal is four times larger than it was in the 1950s. Similarly, the size of American-manufactured dinner plates has increased nearly 23 percent, from 9.6 inch". If you habitually eat out at restaurants and they gradually feed you more, more sugary, food, but you still have the "clean your plate to be polite" mentality, what does that do? Like: where did this idea of "healthy food" come from? "Health" isn't something in food. Like: where did the idea that cooking is "a real chore" come from? Can't one grow up to find preparing food a relaxing joy, an interest, an everyday part of life? Or learn to spend less time on it, e.g. meal prepping? Like: "I tend to overeat when I encounter stress in life" - Where does that behaviour come from? That's learned from somewhere, it isn't innate to cavepeople to have food on hand just in case life gets stressful, it's likely some family or community cultural habit where others might not do that. I think it was Paul Lutus in a Reddit AMA, someone asked him if he baked much when living in a cabin in the woods, and he said he found it difficult to resist eating baked goods so he just didn't make them or buy them. That kind of discipline is much easier than buying them, having them nearby, and trying to resist eating them every moment forever. > "Sure but if I could have changed it I would have." Perhaps you can't, there are suggestions that becoming obese screws up your body forever, so it burns less fat (e.g. prefering quicker feeling of tiredness to reduce movement, rather than breaking the laws of thermodynamics), holds onto fat more strongly, distorts feelings of hunger and satiety and food cravings. UK comedian Ed Gamble who lost a lot of weight jokingly commented about thin people "if you don't think about food, what are you thinking about literally all the time?". It's possible that wasn't joking and years of obsessively thinking about food engrained that as a pattern he will be stuck with for the rest of his life, when always-thin people can forget about food when thinking about other things.
vore 4y ago
There is a line between fat acceptance and glorifying being fat that gets often muddled on social media. Social media is, of course, a funhouse mirror and you'll find that most fat acceptance activists do not actually believe being fat is healthy and really just don't want people to discriminate unfairly against fat people.
bl_valance 4y ago
Simple, because it's easier to convince people that being overweight is perfectly fine and healthy. As opposed to changing diets, exercising, and holding companies accountable for the junk they put in our food to cut costs.
em-bee 4y ago
i think the article explains that the BMI is misleading. there are ways one can be healthy and not actually overweight while having a bad BMI. the laymans conclusion: BMI says i am overweight, but actually i am healthy, therefore i must have this healthy obesity.
vjk800 4y ago
The article quoted in the link (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2020.00053/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2020.00053...) contains a list of plausible hypotheses and mechanisms for why some amount of fat might actually be good for you. I don't have enough background in human physiology to say how seriously those should be taken, but there you go.
CodeWriter23 4y ago
There are other inversion vectors in our society people seem to believe. They are numerous but for just one example, calling black people “white supremacists” is but one example. These constructs are usually the opposite of what they claim, like “healthy” in this example.
csa 4y ago
> What interests me is how anybody could ever come to believe otherwise. The contrary belief flies in the face of all common sense, popular experience and medical science. Did you read the article? I can give you two simple examples: Look at any picture of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson when he has been ripped. Ditto with Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime. BMI says these folks are either obese or severely obese. Extreme examples, but illustrative of the weakness of bmi. On a personal level, I have been listed as obese by a doctor when I weighed in 205 as someone who is 5’11” (somewhat carelessly, because bmi was 28.x, and “obese” is 30+, but still…). Doctor did not care to notice that I was very muscular, exercise regularly (weights and cardio), and was pretty lean. The doctor wanted to talk to me about my “weight problem”. I pulled out dexa can showing that I had 176 pounds of lean body mass and was 14-15% body fat (“healthy” range, and probably much leaner than her, even though she was slight build and thin), told her about my diet and exercise regimen, and she quickly reversed course. You can see how muscular people are unhappy about bmi being used for individual evaluation. BMI is a measure that is meant to be used to measure populations rather than individuals. Being used as a quick a dirty evaluation tool without looking in more detail by the doctor is irresponsible medicine — yet it is common practice. This is why “anybody could come to believe otherwise”. Obviously, if the dexa scan comes back saying someone is 30% body fat, no amount of muscle can make that “healthy”, but I think that’s not where most thoughtful people have issues with potentially specious claims of obesity.
- koonsolo 4y ago
  What about something like ABSI? https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/a-body-shape-index https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/a-body-shape-index
  - return_to_monke 4y ago
    There are multiple such measures. Ones I could think of right off the bat is hip/waist ratio, BAI, or simply waist circumference. Those all fail to reliably predict body fatness in all populations. All of those measurements should be taken in context with other health signs, like blood pressure, fasting glucose and maybe eating/exercise habits as well.
proc0 4y ago
This happens because the social norm (in the US) is to avoid any conversation or subject matter that is even remotely negative. You can see it in every day interactions, people just can't handle criticism of any kind. Conversations must only have positive tones and people are socialized to avoid anything that might result in conflict. This has something to do with political correctness, which is now the status quo, but that's a different matter.
Tozen 4y ago
Part of the problem is that those who are overweight don't want to be shamed for it or can wish others would avoid the topic. Consequently, it can become a socially complex issue, where people want to avoid hurting other people's feelings, but there is a clear as day health and physical appearance issue. And for many overweight people, once they are allowed to feel comfortable about it, they don't want to do anything about the problem. Too many rather live in delusion, until the end. When societies put up facades and allows delusion to persists, the actual issue doesn't go away. People are still fat, unhealthy (and dying from it), and their appearance is still an issue (even if friends lie or avoid it).
Qem 4y ago
> What interests me is how anybody could ever come to believe otherwise. Probably because some popular "treatments" for the condition often attempted are far worse than obesity itself. Yo-yo dieting, amphetamine use, serial liposuction, binge eating and throwing up, et cetera.
itqwertz 4y ago
Obesity is a hot market.

vixen99 4y ago

The literature on the relationship between BMI and mortality is not conclusive except for a BMI > 30. Generally it seems that lower mortality is associated with a body mass index of 20-25. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1000367 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1000367 However there are studies which find lowest mortality for the slightly overweight with BMI < 30. For instance: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/1555137 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/1555137 and https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2022.857787/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2022.8577...

blackoil 4y ago

It is a reaction to obese people being butt of jokes and now majority becoming obese. If you can't change lifestyle you can use contra views as coping mechanisms. Also, like anti-science believing in snake oils and flat earth over the internet you can live in an echo chamber custom made for you.

nimbius 4y ago

dont forget multinational processed food and snack vendors benefit immensely from the perception that hyperconsumption of sugar salt and fat is normal and good, and that your obesity is a shameless wonder to cherish unto the grave. look at the sons and daughters of branded food conglomerate moguls and their top executives. youll likely find them quite trim.

stametseater 4y ago
Clothing companies have also played a role in normalizing obesity with advertisements featuring obese people, often accompanied by pro-fat propaganda slogans like "healthy at any size". They do this out of pure greed; fat people have money and buy clothes, so it makes business sense to advertise products to them. But these ads are bad for public health because they promote unhealthy standards as normal and okay.

wanderingbort 4y ago

Simply put, it’s an enabling belief. Being obese isn’t a root cause. It is a symptom of something else. Particularly, when it is a symptom of depression, believing in “healthy obesity” can be enabling even if it’s not the truth. That person (not statistic) needs to see themselves as healthy and loved to have a chance at being healthy. Telling them to eat better or exercise is thinking about yourself in a generic version of their circumstances rather than them in their actual circumstances.

stametseater 4y ago
> That person (not statistic) needs to see themselves as healthy and loved to have a chance at being healthy. I don't buy it. Tolerance towards fatness has risen since the 80s, as have weights; both have gone up at the same time. The more tolerance our society has for fatness, the fatter people get. If more tolerance for fat people were the key to getting people to lose weight then there should be an inverse relationship between the two, but that just hasn't happened.
- wanderingbort 4y ago
  I'm just going off the research, you can buy whatever you want. "Health obesity" isn't about staying obese, it is about shifting social stigmas as they seem to contribute (paradoxically) to obesity[1]. Why is this something you feel the need to support publicly and vocally instead of letting people's health be between them and their doctors (who also need to work on stigmas[2])? The more society makes this a social issue, the worse off people will be when external stressors land [3]. [1] https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-018-1116-5 https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s1291... [2] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/oby.23266 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/oby.23266 [3] https://academic.oup.com/abm/article/54/10/738/5901900 https://academic.oup.com/abm/article/54/10/738/5901900
infogulch 4y ago
Lying to people about an objective perspective of their current state of being is good for them? Feeling better in the moment just enables people to ignore the root cause and thus fail to make progress. They need truth that their current state sucks, hope that it could be better, and to recognize that their own agency has an outsized effect on their future. And maybe they could use some help breaking down their problems into smaller more achievable steps.

lm28469 4y ago

It's easier to keep indulging in your vices when people tell you they're healthy, hear it or repeat it enough and you'll end up believing it yourself

rhaway84773 4y ago

I think there are several reasons: 1. Historically being fat was considered a sign of good health. Of course, this was during times of massive food scarcity and the definition of fat was probably very different from what we consider fat today. 2. Massive amounts of money involved in telling people to eat/drink more, and then spend more money in gyms and taking pills to lose that weight. As opposed to just eating less and then living normal healthy active lives. There’s not much money in the latter. 3. People wanting to stop fat-shaming (which is also unequivocally bad…fat shaming only makes it harder for people to lose weight), trying to convince other people that someone being fat does not make them bad, quickly morphing into being fat is good.

dudul 4y ago
I'm interested in 3. Is there any research or data about that? I do not encourage fat shaming at all, but I can also imagine that in some cases shame may be a powerful motivator for some people. Is there hard data showing that it actually makes it harder?
- shmoejoe 4y ago
  What I’ve always heard is that if it’s something someone can’t fix in 5 minutes they probably already know and you telling them isn’t helping Now it’s a different story if you’re willing to work with them daily to help them lose weight or something similar. But just telling your friend “he your fat, it’s bad for you fix it” will only hurt
- zdragnar 4y ago
  Shame implies a personal failing, which readily translates into feelings of guilt and helplessness. It is not at all a constructive approach. The "healthy obesity" thing is the pendulum flying to the opposite end of the spectrum: unconditional support turned into acceptance and promotion of what we know to not be true.
  - stametseater 4y ago
    Alternatively: "Shame implies a personal failing, which readily translates into recognizing and correcting those personal failings." In the 20th century, Americans fat shamed each other and were less fat. Today in Asia, people still fat shame each other and they're a lot less fat than Americans.

swatcoder 4y ago

It’s because American society doesn’t let being unhealthy be an affirmative choice. You either need to demonstrate some kind of shame for your unhealthiness or some kind rationale that explains how its actually healthy. The honest facts that “I like to eat tasty good” and “I don’t really enjoy too much physical activity” are only permissible if you also say “and I can’t help myself” or “and it’s actually not unhealthy.” It’s a social dance that makes people hide the personal truth that health isn’t the only thing that matters in life.

wizofaus 4y ago
It might not be the only thing that matters, but once you lose your health, it's very hard to get much enjoyment out of anything else in life. Our bodies remind us constantly in no uncertain terms when they're not functioning well. I can't imagine anything I'd willingly sacrifice my health for, except in some extreme case like saving the lives of loved ones.
wkat4242 4y ago
It isn't the only thing in life of course. If you're healthy but living on the street it's not a very nice life. For me being obese is not really a choice. It's just really hard to do anything about it, especially because I tend to overeat when I encounter stress in life. And I'm not wired with the discipline to fix it. I often go on diets but they never last. Also, living alone cooking is a real chore and there's not enough ready made healthy food. And in terms of exercise I really hate team sports and mindless weight lifting. I do hike a bit though when the season permits. Are these excuses? Sure but if I could have changed it I would have.
- jodrellblank 4y ago
  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 nature and nurture and culture and environment where thin is the result. 1950 had 10% of Americans being obese. Now 35% are. Has there been a decrease in weightlifting since then? A paucity of dieting? No, surely both of those are on record highs with gym memberships and Weightwatchers being so profitable. What about a collapse of discipline - through one of the most productive times in human history, today with lowest unemployment in 20 years? Like: car dependent suburbia. If you don't grow up walking to the shops with your parents, walking to the park to play, walking to school, cycling to school, walking or cycling to work; if your only exposure to movement is mandatory exercise at school which is unpleasant, what does that do to your lifelong views? If your environment doesn't have anywhere interesting to walk to, or any sidewalk to walk on, what does that do? Like: If your parents and family never moved except to get to the car, what kind of early mental expectations does that set you up with? Children try to imitate their parents, if the parents alway groan and complain about having to walk anywhere, that's some kind of lesson. Like: Livestrong.com says "The average restaurant meal is four times larger than it was in the 1950s. Similarly, the size of American-manufactured dinner plates has increased nearly 23 percent, from 9.6 inch". If you habitually eat out at restaurants and they gradually feed you more, more sugary, food, but you still have the "clean your plate to be polite" mentality, what does that do? Like: where did this idea of "healthy food" come from? "Health" isn't something in food. Like: where did the idea that cooking is "a real chore" come from? Can't one grow up to find preparing food a relaxing joy, an interest, an everyday part of life? Or learn to spend less time on it, e.g. meal prepping? Like: "I tend to overeat when I encounter stress in life" - Where does that behaviour come from? That's learned from somewhere, it isn't innate to cavepeople to have food on hand just in case life gets stressful, it's likely some family or community cultural habit where others might not do that. I think it was Paul Lutus in a Reddit AMA, someone asked him if he baked much when living in a cabin in the woods, and he said he found it difficult to resist eating baked goods so he just didn't make them or buy them. That kind of discipline is much easier than buying them, having them nearby, and trying to resist eating them every moment forever. > "Sure but if I could have changed it I would have." Perhaps you can't, there are suggestions that becoming obese screws up your body forever, so it burns less fat (e.g. prefering quicker feeling of tiredness to reduce movement, rather than breaking the laws of thermodynamics), holds onto fat more strongly, distorts feelings of hunger and satiety and food cravings. UK comedian Ed Gamble who lost a lot of weight jokingly commented about thin people "if you don't think about food, what are you thinking about literally all the time?". It's possible that wasn't joking and years of obsessively thinking about food engrained that as a pattern he will be stuck with for the rest of his life, when always-thin people can forget about food when thinking about other things.

vore 4y ago

There is a line between fat acceptance and glorifying being fat that gets often muddled on social media. Social media is, of course, a funhouse mirror and you'll find that most fat acceptance activists do not actually believe being fat is healthy and really just don't want people to discriminate unfairly against fat people.

bl_valance 4y ago

Simple, because it's easier to convince people that being overweight is perfectly fine and healthy. As opposed to changing diets, exercising, and holding companies accountable for the junk they put in our food to cut costs.

em-bee 4y ago

i think the article explains that the BMI is misleading. there are ways one can be healthy and not actually overweight while having a bad BMI. the laymans conclusion: BMI says i am overweight, but actually i am healthy, therefore i must have this healthy obesity.

vjk800 4y ago

The article quoted in the link (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2020.00053/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2020.00053...) contains a list of plausible hypotheses and mechanisms for why some amount of fat might actually be good for you. I don't have enough background in human physiology to say how seriously those should be taken, but there you go.

CodeWriter23 4y ago

There are other inversion vectors in our society people seem to believe. They are numerous but for just one example, calling black people “white supremacists” is but one example. These constructs are usually the opposite of what they claim, like “healthy” in this example.

csa 4y ago

> What interests me is how anybody could ever come to believe otherwise. The contrary belief flies in the face of all common sense, popular experience and medical science. Did you read the article? I can give you two simple examples: Look at any picture of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson when he has been ripped. Ditto with Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime. BMI says these folks are either obese or severely obese. Extreme examples, but illustrative of the weakness of bmi. On a personal level, I have been listed as obese by a doctor when I weighed in 205 as someone who is 5’11” (somewhat carelessly, because bmi was 28.x, and “obese” is 30+, but still…). Doctor did not care to notice that I was very muscular, exercise regularly (weights and cardio), and was pretty lean. The doctor wanted to talk to me about my “weight problem”. I pulled out dexa can showing that I had 176 pounds of lean body mass and was 14-15% body fat (“healthy” range, and probably much leaner than her, even though she was slight build and thin), told her about my diet and exercise regimen, and she quickly reversed course. You can see how muscular people are unhappy about bmi being used for individual evaluation. BMI is a measure that is meant to be used to measure populations rather than individuals. Being used as a quick a dirty evaluation tool without looking in more detail by the doctor is irresponsible medicine — yet it is common practice. This is why “anybody could come to believe otherwise”. Obviously, if the dexa scan comes back saying someone is 30% body fat, no amount of muscle can make that “healthy”, but I think that’s not where most thoughtful people have issues with potentially specious claims of obesity.

koonsolo 4y ago
What about something like ABSI? https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/a-body-shape-index https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/a-body-shape-index
- return_to_monke 4y ago
  There are multiple such measures. Ones I could think of right off the bat is hip/waist ratio, BAI, or simply waist circumference. Those all fail to reliably predict body fatness in all populations. All of those measurements should be taken in context with other health signs, like blood pressure, fasting glucose and maybe eating/exercise habits as well.

proc0 4y ago

This happens because the social norm (in the US) is to avoid any conversation or subject matter that is even remotely negative. You can see it in every day interactions, people just can't handle criticism of any kind. Conversations must only have positive tones and people are socialized to avoid anything that might result in conflict. This has something to do with political correctness, which is now the status quo, but that's a different matter.

Tozen 4y ago

Part of the problem is that those who are overweight don't want to be shamed for it or can wish others would avoid the topic. Consequently, it can become a socially complex issue, where people want to avoid hurting other people's feelings, but there is a clear as day health and physical appearance issue. And for many overweight people, once they are allowed to feel comfortable about it, they don't want to do anything about the problem. Too many rather live in delusion, until the end. When societies put up facades and allows delusion to persists, the actual issue doesn't go away. People are still fat, unhealthy (and dying from it), and their appearance is still an issue (even if friends lie or avoid it).

Qem 4y ago

> What interests me is how anybody could ever come to believe otherwise. Probably because some popular "treatments" for the condition often attempted are far worse than obesity itself. Yo-yo dieting, amphetamine use, serial liposuction, binge eating and throwing up, et cetera.

itqwertz 4y ago

Obesity is a hot market.