There Is a Serious Global Obesity Problem

[Deleted]

Wow dude. Really classless. Encouraging someone to take their life?

Wonder if you've ever realized that your crusade against overweight people has contributed to people consider or committing suicide. Or, whether you even care, for real, especially since they're overweight and all, and you are the lowlife that you are.

[Kithelle]

BMI is a good measurement for average people. It's correct that it's usually inaccurate for people that do weight lifting and other strength training but for the average person and for analyzing a populations average body types it's a very good measurement.

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The myth that healthy food is expensive needs to die out.

lol...you're fooling your self if you think healthier foods don't cost more...ramen noodles is the perfect example...nothing but empty carbs but so cheap and can be found almost ANYWHERE that sells food.

[Manabomb]

Maybe if insurance companies were no longer forced to cover fat people they'd lose some weight.

Maybe if insurance didn't cover people with life threatening allergies they'd avoid their allergy trigger.

Hurr hurr taftvalue logic. I'll excuse you while you get in your lolgic copter and piss all over intellectual thought.

[Deleted]

Maybe if insurance didn't cover people with life threatening allergies they'd avoid their allergy trigger.

Hurr hurr taftvalue logic. I'll excuse you while you get in your lolgic copter and piss all over intellectual thought.

You don't get accidentally fat.

Try again.

[GSN]

I like all the excuses in this thread. BMI is not a perfect measuring system, no. But it is a good guideline for most people, especially women. Fat women get heavier babies, and the cycle just goes on since if the parents can't take care of their own bodies, they will abuse their child as well. Child obesity should be made punishable.

[May90]

I like all the excuses in this thread. BMI is not a perfect measuring system, no. But it is a good guideline for most people, especially women. Fat women get heavier babies, and the cycle just goes on since if the parents can't take care of their own bodies, they will abuse their child as well. Child obesity should be made punishable.

Actually, it is not a good guideline at all. In fact, as far as I know, it is just a math formula someone came up with in their free time, and that someone didn't even have a medical degree. I can come up with something like this at my own leisure as well and proclaim it as a good measurement. For example, people who don't jog every morning tend to be obese more often than people who jog every morning, so here is my scale: those who jog every morning are fit, those who don't are obese! Where is my Nobel?

[GSN]

Actually, it is not a good guideline at all. In fact, as far as I know, it is just a math formula someone came up with in their free time, and that someone didn't even have a medical degree. I can come up with something like this at my own leisure as well and proclaim it as a good measurement. For example, people who don't jog every morning tend to be obese more often than people who jog every morning, so here is my scale: those who jog every morning are fit, those who don't are obese! Where is my Nobel?

Explain to me where it fails, and why doctors and health organizations across the world use it as a quick measurement. Note that I don't want the argument about how it doesn't work "for everyone", I'm talking about the average person here. Within the normal height for their gender and age, and without any extremely athletic lifestyles. How often will you find a 5'5ft, 190 lbs woman who turns out to not be overweight?

[May90]

Explain to me where it fails, and why doctors and health organizations across the world use it as a quick measurement. Note that I don't want the argument about how it doesn't work "for everyone", I'm talking about the average person here. Within the normal height for their gender and age, and without any extremely athletic lifestyles. How often will you find a 5'5ft, 190 lbs woman who turns out to not be overweight?

It fails already just because it provides no explanation/justification of the used brackets, so it has no practical relevance. It doesn't work for an average person either: due to various racial, ethnic, historical, geographical, etc. aspects, there is just no way to adequately estimate one's physical shape by comparing their height to their weight. As for the people using BMI - well, unfortunately, not all people working in healthcare know much about healthcare.

[ls-]

It fails already just because it provides no explanation/justification of the used brackets, so it has no practical relevance. It doesn't work for an average person either: due to various racial, ethnic, historical, geographical, etc. aspects, there is just no way to adequately estimate one's physical shape by comparing their height to their weight. As for the people using BMI - well, unfortunately, not all people working in healthcare know much about healthcare.

TBH, there are average values for everything, bone/fat/muscle density, etc, that's how doctors qualify someone as under-/overweight, tall or short and so on. There are extreme exceptions. Ofc there's mathematical formula that can describe majority of people (average person) in a certain region or even in the world, that's how math works.

We aren't as unique as many people tend to think.

P.S. BMI ranges are quite wide, so they work fine for an average person.

[GSN]

Regardless if you use BMI or not(cba discussing that anymore if you can't understand the fact that no group of the human species aren't built for carrying 100lbs of extra fat), more people are overweight and obese today and it's seen on the increase of obesity related healthproblems, among other things.

[Kithelle]

I am in the process of a diet and exercise plan at the moment. It's been much easier to stick to this time, you know why? Money. My wife and I are better off then we were four years ago, when I tried my last diet and gym.

Yeah...people don't seem to realize that or take it for granted...or are just plain stupid. They pretend that healthier food costs just as much as less than healthy food...hard to do much more than walk/jog/run without money...it's hard to eat very good without money.

I mean some people have no logic...like people would buy unhealthy crap if it cost more than the healthier alternatives...

$3.55 for a box of healthy pasta (Dreamfields pasta)...you can get 2 six packs of ramen for right around the same price around here.
5g of Fiber and 7g of protein vs empty carbs...
13.25 oz and having to purchase something else to flavor vs 36 total oz and flavor packets...

Unhealthy is cheap...plain and simple, and anyone denying that is living in a dream land.

[ls-]

Regardless if you use BMI or not(cba discussing that anymore if you can't understand the fact that no group of the human species aren't built for carrying 100lbs of extra fat), more people are overweight and obese today and it's seen on the increase of obesity related healthproblems, among other things.

It's also a reason why many people are no longer seen as overweight by general public, if majority is overweight, being fat will eventually become a new norm (new average).

[Deleted]

There's a lot of talk about this. And it's funny cause while they're talking about it, Mcdonalds and similar shit fast food junkyards keep popping up at every corner.

[Sierra85]

fat people just need self control. maybe we should teach will power in schools.

[Flutterguy]

Why do anything about it? Lifestyle choices.

[Gestopft]

Explain to me where it fails, and why doctors and health organizations across the world use it as a quick measurement. Note that I don't want the argument about how it doesn't work "for everyone", I'm talking about the average person here. Within the normal height for their gender and age, and without any extremely athletic lifestyles. How often will you find a 5'5ft, 190 lbs woman who turns out to not be overweight?

Well, the first reason is the obvious athlete issue. Any system that can assign the same value to a couch potato and a gym rat with very different exercise habits and body fat percentages should be immediately suspect. I didn't train like an athlete or anything, but when I was in the best shape of my life, I just lifted weights fairly consistently and did plenty of cardio, and I was nearly obese according to the BMI. It's not just outliers- most guys that do a reasonable amount of weightlifting are probably going to qualify as overweight.

Additionally, the BMI isn't even internally consistent. The formula is calculated using the square of the height, which is not how the human body gains mass as height increases. The result of this is that if two people have a similar build, but different height, the taller person will have a higher BMI.

[jbombard]

Well, the first reason is the obvious athlete issue. Any system that can assign the same value to a couch potato and a gym rat with very different exercise habits and body fat percentages should be immediately suspect. I didn't train like an athlete or anything, but when I was in the best shape of my life, I just lifted weights fairly consistently and did plenty of cardio, and I was nearly obese according to the BMI. It's not just outliers- most guys that do a reasonable amount of weightlifting are probably going to qualify as overweight.

Additionally, the BMI isn't even internally consistent. The formula is calculated using the square of the height, which is not how the human body gains mass as height increases. The result of this is that if two people have a similar build, but different height, the taller person will have a higher BMI.

BMI was not designed to be used to identify individual obesity. It was designed to be used as a rough measure of large populations, because getting an accurate measurement in that situation is extremely difficult. When used as a general indicator of large populations the margin of error is small enough to provide a good measurement. If you are upset because your individual BMI rating is not accurate because you work out a lot, well then you are upset about nothing because BMI was never designed to be used as an individual measurement of obesity. When I was in the military, it was used to determine if someone needed to get a more accurate measurement of body fat however. So people with extreme muscle mass had to get the additional check more often. At the end of the day if they were within regulation the initial BMI check didn't mean anything.

[ls-]

Well, the first reason is the obvious athlete issue. Any system that can assign the same value to a couch potato and a gym rat with very different exercise habits and body fat percentages should be immediately suspect. I didn't train like an athlete or anything, but when I was in the best shape of my life, I just lifted weights fairly consistently and did plenty of cardio, and I was nearly obese according to the BMI. It's not just outliers- most guys that do a reasonable amount of weightlifting are probably going to qualify as overweight.

Additionally, the BMI isn't even internally consistent. The formula is calculated using the square of the height, which is not how the human body gains mass as height increases. The result of this is that if two people have a similar build, but different height, the taller person will have a higher BMI.

Yes, that's fine, because technically we are heavier than average person of our height. That's why we usually track BF %, muscle mass and so on directly, if we need to do so.

BMI wasn't designed w/ anyone who does weightlifting in mind and shouldn't be applied to people who lift, and I've never met a doctor who did it. Your average Joe/Jane doesn't work out, so in their case BMI works just fine.

[Deleted]

Yeah...people don't seem to realize that or take it for granted...or are just plain stupid. They pretend that healthier food costs just as much as less than healthy food...hard to do much more than walk/jog/run without money...it's hard to eat very good without money.

I mean some people have no logic...like people would buy unhealthy crap if it cost more than the healthier alternatives...

$3.55 for a box of healthy pasta (Dreamfields pasta)...you can get 2 six packs of ramen for right around the same price around here.
5g of Fiber and 7g of protein vs empty carbs...
13.25 oz and having to purchase something else to flavor vs 36 total oz and flavor packets...

Unhealthy is cheap...plain and simple, and anyone denying that is living in a dream land.

Unhealthy foods are cheaper but for me personally the gap between them doesn't seem that steep. Im in the process of losing weight myself and I eat healthy foods, which cots me about 40 pounds a week. Though I am a vegan so not having meat added to my groceries did reduce the cost by a lot.

And while unhealthy foods are cheaper you tend to eat more of them, making the price go up either way, which is why I got weight problems to begin with, and assume enough people have the same problem.

It's just a example...I would eat a lot better if I had more to spend...would love to eat more organic...but meh.

Organic foods are great but I can't say I'm strict on those, I still buy what's reasonably affordable, and buying lettuce for 1 pound because it's organic or 30p when it's not, I tend to choose the latter.

[Kithelle]

Unhealthy foods are cheaper but for me personally the gap between them doesn't seem that steep. Im in the process of losing weight myself and I eat healthy foods, which cots me about 40 pounds a week. Though I am a vegan so not having meat added to my groceries did reduce the cost by a lot.

And while unhealthy foods are cheaper you tend to eat more of them, making the price go up either way, which is why I got weight problems to begin with, and assume enough people have the same problem.

It's just a example...I would eat a lot better if I had more to spend...would love to eat more organic...but meh.