Fatties and their Haters

[Nyoibo]

Almost all the people I know are overweight or obese according to the BMI, and not one of them is, their body fat % is in the perfectly healthy range, they're all gymnasts, dancers or circus performers, they're all fit, but all of them have a BMI over 26.

I'm a good example of the BMI not working, I'm overweight, that's true, but I'm about half the size of some other people who are the same weight or even lighter than me and who are the same height, I have fairly high muscle density, even at the lightest I could healthily be I'd be at least 80-85KG, that still leaves me at a BMI of 33, but much lighter and I'd probably be dangerously low on bodyfat.

[AdminAssistant]

My "ideal" BMI would put me at 120-125 lbs. I have seen me at that weight, when I was 15, and it was not pretty. All knees and elbows and collarbones and no boobs. My bf was beyond thrilled when I went on birth control, gained some weight, and grew some tits and an ass.

I am overweight, and I do need to lose some weight, but IMO the healthiest I was ever at was when I was at 150 lbs and taking lots of dance classes. *sigh* I wish I could get back into that.

[AFPheonix]

BMI is used incorrectly, it's true, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have applications. It is best used to measure populations. It's also best used as a quick way to "eyeball" obesity in an individual in order to see if it's worth doing additional testing such as fat calipers and whatnot. It was never meant to be super accurate, it's quick and dirty.

There will always be exceptions to the rule with BMI, that is where other tests such as body fat percentage come in. Those weed out the few people who have more muscle than fat from the regular people who sit too much, eat too many processed foods and have the cellulite to prove it.

This article also ignored the fact that BMI in the US is increasing. A quick look in any Walmart tells me that it sure as hell isn't because we're getting more weight lifters and footballers coming in.

[Nyoibo]

I'll have to see how it goes in my next 80 hours of clinic, but in my first 20 hours I never had an overweight client, hell I only saw maybe one overweight client in the waiting room the whole time, so out of 640 people, 1 person was overweight, at least looked so, I'm sure there were plenty overweight according to the BMI.

[ladyneeva]

There are more "overweight" and "obese" than there were 20 years ago partly because in the early 90's they moved the goal posts (overweight used to be anything over BMI of 27... then in 93 they changed it to anything over 25 -- millions of Americans went to bed 'average' and woke up 'overweight'... how absurd is THAT) and partly because there just plain are more people.

There is a good post covering that on the Junkfood Science blog -- the writer there seems pretty with it, she has cites and links to references. It isn't entirely opinion based. It's my 'go to' site for things on this topic simply because she has cites and references and breaks it down into plain language that I can grasp.

http://tinyurl.com/626r9k

And thats assuming it's EVER a good idea to marginalize and categorize people based on fairly meaningless criteria. More and more studies are being done that show that BMI alone has relatively minimal impacts on overall health. For example, the one Junkfood Science covers here - http://tinyurl.com/mkzorr

There are a few other articles on similar studies, I think most of them are linked on the side bar of that one.

Regardless though, even if being fat is every bit as bad as claimed... does that make it at all appropriate to bully, tease, torment, insult, marginalize, ignore, and demonize an entire group of people? Really, if being fat is as bad as claimed... we're only killing ourselves. It's not like you can catch "second hand fat", and since we'll be supposedly dying younger we're no more of a drain on health care resources than someone who lives to be 100. We'll just cram all 100 years of medical care into 50 years, theoretically.

Although... if we're all getting fatter and fatter, and being fat drastically shortens our life... how come the average life span has been going UP? Theoretically, if everyone is doing something that shortens life spans, shouldn't the average be going DOWN?

Sorry if this is disjointed... a cat jumped on my stomach from a great height and caused extreme pain, and I've not yet gotten back to sleep... and considering I'd only BEEN asleep for an hour at that point, my brain just isn't fully functional today lol

[Lace Neil Singer]

Technically, there is a way of catching "second hand fat"; when an obese person becomes a parent and passes their bad habits on to their kids.

Then again, there's a huge difference between being slightly overweight and being obese that I don't think that doctors see. I could stand to lose a few pounds and tone up, however, I'm much healthier in some ways than this girl I know who's skinny. She's a bit too skinny, in my opinion; her arms are like matchsticks and she's constantly on a diet. She gets every cough, sniffle and cold going; yet there are people who'd point to me and say I was the unhealthy one, just cuz I have meat on my bones, and that she was the ideal. -.-

[BroomJockey]

*MOD NOTE* Merged with the thread BlaqueKatt referenced, since this is really a continuation of the same.*/Mod note*

BMI is used incorrectly, it's true, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have applications. It is best used to measure populations. It's also best used as a quick way to "eyeball" obesity in an individual in order to see if it's worth doing additional testing such as fat calipers and whatnot. It was never meant to be super accurate, it's quick and dirty.

So you admit it's being used incorrectly, and it's poor to use on an individual due to gross inaccuracy. But somehow, that inaccuracy doesn't matter when you go to a larger group. ...I'll leave that alone and move straight to the argument "If it is consistently being used incorrectly by a large number of people, and the use isn't helpful by the majority of those using it, wouldn't it be better to retire its use all together, rather than continuing to spread inaccurate facts?" After all, you admit there are other tests, which are more accurate on a per-individual basis. I have to think at least one of those would scale effectively to a large population, and would then prevent misinformation on the level we're talking about. Just because a tool has use doesn't mean it should be continued to be used when there's other, better tools.

[AFPheonix]

When I say incorrectly, I mean that when people think it means that that one little number is absolutely biblical in the implications for an individual's health.

Think of it as the difference between quick and dirty math and sitting down and working out a problem long-hand. You can use the quick and dirty method to get a quick guesstimate when that number is appropriate, and the more accurate number when you need that.
BMI can be used as a quick estimate for MOST people. Obviously it will not be accurate in regards to the exceptions already mentioned here. That is why they are the exception, not the rule. For your average, sedentary American, it really isn't "grossly inaccurate".
It's cheap, and as I said, useful in the measure of populations because most people don't have titanium-dense bones or are muscle bound. Most people, at least in the states, are pretty squishy. That's why it can be generally used to measure trends in populations.

Ladyneeva, moving the goalposts doesn't take into account that the overall numbers are higher. Average BMI is higher. There are more people in the several-hundred pound range and up than there used to be. It's not because sumo is an exploding sport, either.

I'm not saying that BMI is perfect. It's not. In fact, if someone came up with something between in and the Ponderal Index, we might have a better tool to use.

[Boozy]

So you admit it's being used incorrectly, and it's poor to use on an individual due to gross inaccuracy. But somehow, that inaccuracy doesn't matter when you go to a larger group.

Correct. Large samples (say, the population of the United States) will have many body-builders, but they will also have many people with much lower than average muscle-to-fat ratios. These two groups rule each other out when the sample gets large enough. Therefore BMI is a good way of determining obesity trends in the US, but is a bad way of determining whether any given individual is overweight.

[BroomJockey]

These two groups rule each other out when the sample gets large enough.

Okay, so it looks like I won't be ignoring this argument. Yes, it seems like they should cancel each other out, except that if you have a large enough margin of error in each individual case, it becomes magnified at larger samples. The "margin of confidence" becomes widened to the point where the statistic is basically useless. The only way your sample can avoid this is to actually use the entire population.

Put it this way: If I take a sample, and each person has a margin of error of +/- 50% for the calculation (meaning that upon inspection, the BMI is either correct, wrong up, or wrong down), then there's no way to know if the sample is skewed to the point bias. Unless you count the entire population, with a statistic as generalized as BMI, any pocket of deviance you miss will greatly skew the results. Only within the margin of confidence can you say the BMI is correct, but BMI is proven to have a large margin of error. It simply can't be generalized up in a population without a greater degree of initial accuracy.

If you can't say "Person X with a BMI of 28 is overweight" without greater tests, then it's a poor measure. To then bring this to a group of 10 people, if you say that these 10 people have a BMI have an average BMI of 28, you still can't say if any are overweight. Why? Because any further test on an individual can rule that out. It might be that you have a very skinny person with a BMI of 12, and then everyone else is BMI 29, and muscular. If you expand that to a group of 100, and the 100 have an average BMI of 28, you might have one person at 40, most people at 28, and some people at 25. But you still can't say if anyone's actually overweight, since, you know, you need more tests. You can keep scaling it up as far as you want, but since it doesn't allow a conclusion about an individual, it doesn't allow for a conclusion about a group. This makes it a bad measure to rely on.

[ladyneeva]

So according to you, the fact that I am fat and you don't like it is all the justification needed to do or say anything to me that you like, because it's for my own good?

Wonder how that would work if we applied it to a homosexual person, a black person, or someone with a birth defect.

[Boozy]

So according to you, the fact that I am fat and you don't like it is all the justification needed to do or say anything to me that you like, because it's for my own good?

When you say "you", whom are you addressing? I can't seem to find anyone making this argument in this thread.

[BlaqueKatt]

It was never meant to be super accurate, it's quick and dirty.

And he skewed the results by fudging a formula to fit the data(squaring height) because otherwise it didn't work

This article also ignored the fact that BMI in the US is increasing.

Um no it didn't-that was the lead in
"Americans keep putting on the pounds — at least according to a report released this week from the Trust for America's Health. The study found that nearly two-thirds of states now have adult obesity rates above 25 percent.

But you may want to take those findings — and your next meal — with a grain of salt, because they're based on a calculation called the body mass index, or BMI. "

and then it goes to rip apart why the BMI is bad science, and useless.

"the formula tacitly assumes low muscle mass and high relative fat content. It applies moderately well when applied to such people because it was formulated by focusing on them. But it gives exactly the wrong answer for a large and significant section of the population. Averages measure entire populations and often don't apply to individuals."

A quick look in any Walmart tells me that it sure as hell isn't because we're getting more weight lifters and footballers coming in.

We are getting much better bone density and a large portion of the city I live in goes to health clubs several times a week-we're also pretty bicycle friendly.

There are more "overweight" and "obese" than there were 20 years ago partly because in the early 90's they moved the goal posts (overweight used to be anything over BMI of 27... then in 93 they changed it to anything over 25 -- millions of Americans went to bed 'average' and woke up 'overweight'... how absurd is THAT) and partly because there just plain are more people.

Insurance companies sometimes charge higher premiums for people with a high BMI. Among such people are all those fit individuals with good bone and muscle and little fat, who will live long, healthy lives during which they will have to pay those greater premiums.

They did the same thing with blood pressure-change the definition of disease-broden it and catch more people to medicate and charge higher insurance premiums to.

Normal is now not. What was classified as normal or high-normal blood pressure (a systolic pressure of 120-139 mm Hg and diastolic pressure of 80-89 mm Hg) is now categorized as prehypertension.

This meant that 45 million Americans who had gone to sleep with normal blood pressure woke up with higher-than-healthy blood pressure.

45 million people now unhealthy with the stroke of a pen-makes it look like the number has gone up significantly if you don't realize the definition was changed and the people stayed the same.

This article on abnormal PSA readings for prostrate cancer explains the issue pretty well.

They found that if all US men aged 40-69 (those most likely to be screened) were tested using PSA with a 4.0 ng/mL threshold, about 1.5 million of them would have a PSA level abnormally high enough to justify a biopsy. Lowering the threshold to 2.5 ng/mL would call for an additional 1.8 million men to receive biopsies. This group of "abnormal" men would comprise 10.7% of all US men between the ages of 50 and 59, and 17% of men between the ages of 60 and 69.

To put things into perspective the authors point out that in the next 10 years, relatively few men are expected to die from prostate cancer--0.3% of men aged 50-59, and 0.9% of men aged 60-69.

[ladyneeva]

Sorry, for some reason I didn't copy my entire post when I pasted it into the quick reply box. First couple paragraphs were missing.

--
Based on a statements in this thread I guess we can take it as a given that many of you consider those of us who are fat to be second class citizens. I didn't go through all the posts in the thread but these are the kinds of things that are being said about those of us who aren't perfect little size 0's and nobody challenged any of these hateful (and mostly untrue) statements:

Either we make fun of them, which is bad for their feelings. We can't go on about how it's unhealthy, because then we are still being rude or some absurd crap.

There aren't that many obese people who are in that state for medical reasons; most are there cuz they ate all the pies. It's not being rude to point that out; and yes, if they did stop eating enough to feed a family of four and started exercising more

Typically they're getting cheeto dust down into their keyboards as they're angrily banging out their manifesto against a society telling them to get thinner.

---

Sorry those are the "yous" I was referring to -- and in a more general sense, "you" is also referring to a society who thinks everyone who is overweight is greedy, lazy, and stupid.

And if you dare say anything about how being constantly ridiculed, put down, insulted, and subjected to hateful language and even physical attacks makes you feel... you get one of two reactions. Either people claim you're just trolling for sympathy, or people heap even MORE abuse on you and tell you you're just not TRYING hard enough.

[DesignFox]

Ladyneeva, I don't think they were saying that fat people deserve ridicule.

I think they were all saying that yes, some people bring the ridicule down upon themselves. Some people are also just overly sensitive. If a doctor says, "Hey, it would improve your health if you dropped a couple pounds" is that really grounds to get insulted?

Regardless of the issue, it seems that you have to walk on eggshells around people to avoid "offending" someone. And to me, and I think some others on here, that is total crap.

There's a big difference between the simple fact that being grossly overweight poses health risks and someone pointing and laughing and making rude remarks. A doctor or friend may point out the former, but no one deserves the latter.

For me, I really think there are few excuses for being overweight. Trust me, I know drugs affect things- my brother has some behavioral issues and his meds cause his weight to flip flop up and down like crazy.

I also knew a young girl who got extremely ill with pancreatic cancer. Her meds made her blow up like a blimp.

But the simple fact is that many people are getting heavier. And it isn't due to medication. I don't need a BMI statistic to tell me that Americans are getting fatter. I just need to look out my window and watch the people walking down the street. I just need to look at myself from 8 months ago- I was nearly 140lbs! At 5' tall that's seriously bad!

So. What did I do about the awful situation I was in? I started counting calories. I realized that I was MASSIVELY overeating. Even with the horseback riding I was doing each day, I was consuming FAR too much food.

I cut back. It was the easiest thing in the world to do. I simply watched my caloric intake. I started taking walks before or after dinner. I cut out sugary drinks.

Then, I even got lucky (although I didn't realize it at the time) and my ex broke up with me. I went back home. Closer to my horse, to my true friends, and working in a better location I became happier. I hadn't realized how miserable and stressed out I was until I was home for a month or two. And miraculously, all these things combined dropped off that excess weight. Even my doctor, who expressed serious concerns the first time I hit 140 on the scales, was impressed and noted the weight loss.

I'd still like to lose another 5 or 10lbs (and to that end I've been doing more excercises and spending more time at the barn) - but at least I look normal again!

er...I was going somewhere with this...Oh...

If you *really* wanna lose weight. Count your calories. Do things that make you happy. And start slow. Just go take a walk after dinner! It's really not that hard.

If you don't want to do those things, I won't ridicule you. But don't *complain* to me that you're fat, either.

THAT'S the difference!