'Being fat is no worse for you than being a woman'

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/26/latest_bmi_foolishness/

The widely-discredited Body Mass Index (BMI) method of measuring how fat a person is took another hammering today. Scientists in the USA have announced a study showing that an "overweight" BMI is not linked to poor health at all, and even an "obese" rating seems to be nothing to worry about for under-40s.

“A lot of people make a big deal about those overweight BMIs," said Brant Jarrett of Ohio State university.

"But we didn’t see a difference between overweight and normal-weight adults across all age groups. For college-age adults, this should help them realize that they don’t have to worry so much if they have a BMI of 27 or 28. Some young people with these BMIs feel like, ‘I’m going to have all these problems, I need to try 50 different diets.’ And what is all that stress and dieting doing to your body? Probably more damage than the extra 15 pounds is.”

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Among the over-forties obese people were significantly more likely to be taking medication for a health problem related to physical factors (as opposed to mental conditions, which were removed from the statistics). Even then the difference between norms and fatties was barely bigger than that between men and women - women are much more likely to be on medication than men are.

In fact, normal-BMI US women over 40 are almost as likely to be on medication as obese-BMI men: the proportions are 57 and 61 per cent respectively. It would seem that simply being female is pretty much as bad for you - and as expensive for society to pay for - as being a fat man.

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Surely there has to be some group of people they can demonize. :sarcasm:

There has to be something really wrong with fat people because they look so "icky" to the righteously indignant stick figures who want to lash out at somebody to make up for the endless tedium of their diets and wasted months of bouncing up and down while wearing lycra.

reach 40 one of these days and will likely still be overweight and obese. They will also have another 15 to 20 years of bad eating habits under their belts (literally and figuratively) which will make it all that much harder for them to change to a healthier lifestyle.

The sooner a problem is corrected, the sooner it is no longer a problem.

I'm under 40 (by a couple years, anyway), and overweight.

I've always been overweight. And yes, my diet in the past has been pretty much terrible. No more than most Americans, I suspect, but bad.

The last few years, though, I've been eating healthy. I virtually live on whole grains and vegetables. But, I'm still overweight. I exercise fairly regularly, and it doesn't change that.

Thanks to heredity, I also have high blood pressure and low HDL cholesterol. So, I take medications.

Not saying that my weight and medications aren't due partially to my own actions, but having changed my actions, my BMI is still not in the "normal" range, or whatever it's called. I don't know if it ever will be. But if it's not, it's not due to either a poor diet or lack of exercise on my part anymore.

Do I have an underlying condition, such as hypothyroidism? I suppose that's possible, but my doc, who is both an internist and an endocrinologist, has never suggested that as a possibility, and I don't have the lack of energy usually associated with hypothyroidism.

I suspect that some people are just not cut out to be stick figures.

I guess I'm not willing to pretend obesity is not a disorder. Where were all these folks who were "meant" to be obese thirty years ago?

Not to mention, the criteria "on medication" is pretty vague. (I take Claritan for seasonal allergies. That would put me in the same category as someone like Cheney, who likely is taking powerful drugs to prevent heart attack number 6.)

There were dozens of people in Army units I servred in who were considered overweight via the BMI measuring system who were in top physical shape.