My biggest problem with that study in particular is that it includes the BMI of people who died of syndromes/diseases that frequently involve wasting (ie cancer). If they had teased that out, it would have been more interesting and useful.
The benefits they proposed for being mildly overweight, iirc, were having extra cushioning for your bones if you fall, and not dying as quickly if you are unable to eat.
I'm not saying there aren't aesthetic reasons one might want to go from "overweight" to "normal" on the BMI scale. But there is significant evidence mounting that it doesn't do all that much for mortality.
My point is that maybe it shouldnt be about mortality maybe it should be about health risks and diseases linked with higher than normal BMI which includes diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Like OK you may live longer with a number of significant medical issues because of your extra weight (like diabetes, but I know you dont like that analogy) than someone with a normal weight who doesnt have weight related medical issues. Its quality of life not quantity that was measured here. My dad was overweight not obese for his life and hes now in his 80s and generally immobile from knee and hip issues as a result of his weight he never worked construction or anything like that, has had a double bypass from heart disease when he was 65 and is type 2 diabetic has been for years since the age of 42 as a result his vision is pretty much gone and had a retinal blowout last year and 3 surgeries on one of his eye as a result of the type 2 diabetes and the circulation in his fingers and feet is shot he has to get to a foot clinic twice a month for assessment cause once something infects or goes wrong hes gonna have serious problems. Hes on 7 daily medications and married to his physicians office. My mom is the same age no medications no surgery fit as a fiddle and never has has a weight issue. She may stroke out or something but cant we all. SO...my point is you can make it about mortality sure but Id rather live happily like my mom instead of face the medical scenario that my dad faces which is a direct result of his lifelong weight choices.
In my opinion this study is gonna let everyone rationalize their own weight decisions, like OK this study says its ok to be overweight Ill live longer than you. Isnt the fact that health is at risk if you are overweight more important than one or two years longer lived? And its important to decide HOW you wanna live cause we all really dont know how long were gonna live regardless of your weight.
My point is that maybe it shouldnt be about mortality maybe it should be about health risks and diseases linked with higher than normal BMI which includes diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Like OK you may live longer with a number of significant medical issues because of your extra weight (like diabetes, but I know you dont like that analogy) than someone with a normal weight who doesnt have weight related medical issues.
There is essentially zero research linking MILD overweight, like this study is talking about, with significant medical issues. At all. Anything that shows an increase with "overweight" is using a classification of "BMI higher than 25 or 27", and includes all BMIs above that, so those studies include both overweight and obese people. If you can find research that shows a health risk for people with a BMI between 25 and 30 (not just for a BMI "above 25"), I'd love to see it, since I spent several hours last night looking.
Health risks associated with being overweight is the name of this article not health risks associated with obesity. The writers of the government publication clearly make the difference between being overweight and obese and ask you to figure out what you are and says that BMI isnt the beall endall way to figure out where you are. Every single illness talks about risks STARTING with being overweight which they say is BMI 25-30 and increase with obesity. Risk factors talked about with respect to overweight and to obesity as in they make a difference between the two in a number of the areas like metabolic syndrome: http://win.niddk.nih.gov/publications/health_risks.htm
Took me 2 seconds to find this.
Of course were all free to choose to believe what we want to.
That's not a study, that's a government site making recommendations on BMI, without listing any actual sources. I am asking for the evidence they used to reach that recommendation. I've looked at the citations for various recommendations of this type, and the research they use to set the 25 BMI as the magic starting point of "unhealthy" is very, very thin.
Honestly, I'm not surprised at the results but again, studies like this are just an indicator not proof of individual outcomes. Especially as adults get older, a little extra weight, especially muscle weight, is a good thing.
My grandmother is nearly 90, wears a size 10 and is considered overweight. She lives a fairly active lifestyle including plenty of walking and gardening.
mandalinn I would imagine than government publications would use the direct source to draw there conclusions as would the Diabetes foundation and the Heart and Stroke foundation and the Cancer Society and so on. Im sure you can find the original research quoted if you contact the government publication authority directly if you feel they are putting out misinformation without relying on some sort of clinical studies perhaps you need to do that cause clearly there is no evidence and the government must be lying to us for some underlying reason. Someone should take them to task thats for sure.
You might want to read this report and contact the entire board of reviewers too and check the studies they cite because Im sure this was released without any form of scientific foundation: http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/...y/ob_gdlns.pdf
especially the 115 outside reviewers that gave scientifc input on this paper including section 2C called Health Risks of Overweight and Obesity notice they distinguish again between the two not just discussing Obesity. But again im pretty sure theres no scientific foundation for this. Its a long study over 250 pages and they do talk about the different kinds of scientific evidence and the studies used to draw these conclusions like are the studies double blind, are they surveys and so on, but again im sure that since they dont publish every single study just their references theyre making it all up. And btw this took me 2 seconds to find too.
Like I said we are all free to rationalize our own lifestyle choices and I get the feeling that no matter what study is shown youll have an answer for why you dont think its valid which is fair enough its your life and your belief system. Im gonna go another direction and believe based on direct observation in my own family and maybe well be on line in 30 years and can compare health status then cause that is only gonna tell the real story. Cause you may be healthy today but 30 years from now is when youll know the accumulated effect on your body.
I don't use BMI to direct my own health decisions anyway (because BMI, as a measure, is meant for populations, not individuals), so this study isn't going to change my path one way or another.
I guess I don't see the harm in considering that, if you're otherwise healthy, except for 10 or so extra pounds, those 10 extra pounds may not be a health risk in themselves, and that losing those 10 extra pounds might not make you any more likely to die, as evidence is showing.
In my opinion this study is gonna let everyone rationalize their own weight decisions, like OK this study says its ok to be overweight Ill live longer than you. Isnt the fact that health is at risk if you are overweight more important than one or two years longer lived? And its important to decide HOW you wanna live cause we all really dont know how long were gonna live regardless of your weight.
And it can just as easily be argued that studies that link excess weight to health problems let everyone rationalize their own weight decisions - especially those regarding weight loss at all costs.
If fat is linked to all sorts of health nasties, that means that weight loss at ANY cost is justified. Starvation, even drugs that are essentially poison...
I can tell you that I rationalized unhealthy weight loss because of the "fat phobia" our culture has than I ever rationalized "staying fat because I'll live longer."
You can always argue that people can interpret the science in ludicrous ways - and the fact is many people do.
The science doesn't "let people" rationalize - people who do that, are going to do that regardless of the science.
Some are and do rationalize refusing to seek medical care or follow a healthy lifestyle because they "look fine."
But we seem to worry a whole lot more about the few (and mostly fictitious) very fat people who think they're healthy because of this research, and the thin folks who are sedentary and eating junk because they look ok and don't feel too bad. "I can't have diabetes, because I'm thin."
So why aren't we as worried about the thin folks getting sick and dying because they think as long as they look ok, they don't need to take care of their health?
Why aren't we as worried about the very fat and even just-a-little overweight folks who become malnourished and ill because they're always trying to get a little thinner using unhealthy and even dangerous methods to lose "just a couple more pounds" because it's "common knowledge" that even the tiniest bit of fat on your body is horrifically ugly and dangerous.
We tend to assume that overweight people especially are lazier, crazier, and stupider than the rest of the population, and there's been tons of research looking to prove that... and failing to do so.
Rationalizations and poor judgement is neither unique nor more common to overweight folks.
I think it's foolhardy to assume that information "lets people rationalize." Nope, it really doesn't. Knowledge is power, for those who want to use it as such. Reasonable people know that one or two or even a hundred studies only give a very small piece of the puzzle.
Learning this information didn't make me decide being fat was good, or "not that bad," it just added a tiny bit of information that made me realize that health isn't just about weight. I couldn't decide that "thin at any cost" was a benefit to me.
And ironically (or maybe entirely logically) it's one of the pieces of the puzzle that finally allowed me to actually beginning to acheive permanent improvements.
When I assumed that weight loss was the primary health risk to me, I was willing to do insane, unhealth, unsustainable, and ultimately ineffective methods to try to lose the weight. After all only the weight mattered.
Even learning that thin folks were likewise at risk if they lived sedentary, unhealthy lives, put it in a different perspective for me. Learning that weight wasn't the holy grail of health, aldo helped me commit to a healthier lifestyle.
Because when the weight loss slowed or didn't come off... I would feel "doomed" to obesity. However, when I decided that obesity wasn't my ownly health risk, then I could stick with my diet and exercise commitments because I wasn't doing them only to get thinner. When I wasn't rewarded with weight loss, I realized it didn't negate the other reasons for diet and exercise.
I don't think the average person is an idiot. I think most people are smart enough to realize that this is only one tiny bit of information. And that to determine what is and isn't healthy for you is a lot more complicated than a certain number on the scale.
See, there's one thing in saying
Theres no evidence.
Then when presented with evidence saying
The evidence isnt the right evidence that I want.
Then when presented with evidence that you cant ignore saying
OK I choose not to believe it.
Like I said, what you believe and choose to do is what you believe to choose and do and thats your right its a free world. Just dont say theres no evidence because there is thats all. You might not like what the evidence says but its there and how you deal with it is your choice no discussion there.
Own it just say you choose not to believe it and thats it thats all but the ok prove it ok I dont like your proof cause it isnt the "right" proof ok so you have proof I choose not to believe it just is weird to me and actually quite aggravating cause it really is just plain ole designed to be arguementative. Its ok to say wow I guess there is evidence but I choose to believe this isnt a factor for me. Weird especially since lots of people read these posts and if there is misinformation out there it should be corrected not stood behind especially if your in a position of authority on the board cause people might give more weight to what you say cause of your position. I'm done promise
As to what you say above of course extremes either end arent necessarily healthy. Not many people live to those extremes though and to use the extreme as proof that the whole theory doesnt suit your liking is the same as saying all BMI results are bogus cause I know a bodybuilder with a BMI of 31 who isnt fat therefore my BMI of 42 doesnt mean squat cause it could be muscle in my case.
My point was to say that maybe the focus should be PROJECTED quality of life instead of mortality and that quality of life wasnt examined in this study. How are people who have been overweight for 10, 20, 30, 50 years doing today other than "breathing, thanks, Im alive". This wasnt looked at and that is a fact it wasnt examined in this study and it might be more important than just death rates. Whether or not quality of life is important to a person and if they wanna make choices based on that is completely up to them. We also forget lots of time that right now at my current weight right now I may be completely healthy but let the effects accumulate for 10, 20, 30 years and see what happens. Sometimes consequences take decades to show up like knee and hip issues so feel free to live in the moment but be aware that your body is paying a price that might be cashed in on in the future.
Research has shown that quality of life is dramatically related to fitness levels and eating habits, but not to overweight.
If you take a sedentary overweight person, and have that person undertake healthy habits such as a healthy diet and regular exercise, that person might arrive at a normal weight, or might not. But that person will have better health outcomes (including diabetes and heart disease risk) than sedentary overweight, obese, or normal BMI individuals.
Enjoy. Believe. Well talk in 20 years.
And I read this a second time and it seems to me your actually agreeing with me, that mortality isnt the only thing to look at which is what I said, its trying to reduce your risk of disease if you are overweight. You can do this through exercise. That what your saying is you can reduce your risk of disease associated with being overweight cause theres proof of increased disease risk with increased body weight by exercising but at the end of the day there is an increased risk of disease if your overweight. How you choose to deal with it is up to you. The issue of are you healthier if normal weight and inactive vs overweight and active is a separate comparison altogether and thats exactly what I was saying -- a simple measure of mortality may not be a great study, that its the quality of life that should be measured.
So are you really saying that a person who is 5 lbs heavier than another has a significantly diminished quality of life, because of those "extra" 5 lbs.
I don't buy it.
There are a lot more than a study or two that has found poor correlations between weight and health (not just mortality rates) when subjects are matched on other lifestyle and environmental factors.
Sleep habits, exercise habits, dietary intake, social relationships, job satisfaction, stress level, socio-economic class ...... these may indeed be more salient than the scale number - but these are complex relationships, and people do have a tendency to want to simplify information, often until it's so oversimplified it becomes entirely meaningless.
It's a whole lot easier to say "fat causes poor health," than to say "poverty, social disapproval, contempt, socially encouraged and reinforced self-hatred, malnourishment from strict dieting, combined with a socially-reinforced low-nutrient diet that is too unvaried and too reliant on processed foods.... in addition to dozens of other factors - cause poor health.
A study in the US found that coffee drinkers were more overweight and less healthy than tea drinkers, and a similar study in Britain found the reverse.
So which is it? Does coffee drinking cause obesity and poor health or does tea drinking cause obesity and poor health - or does this prove that research can't be trusted and doesn't give us any information?
None of the above. In both Britain and the USA, beverage consumption is correlated with social class - but the two have opposite traditions. In Britain coffee drinking is more common in the upper classes and tea drinking the lower classes. In the USA the opposite is true. And in industrialized food-abundant nations, poverty is associated with obesity and poor health.
And if "quality of life" for a person with 5 vanity pounds to lose sucks because they're treated like **** by smug, self-righteous prigs - does that mean that we should encourage the mildly overweight to suck it up and lose the weight, or do we stop accepting that kind of treatment for overweight individuals.
The "mortality" studies aren't the only ones out there, so there are studies that do examine quality of life and other health and lifestyle measures... There are hundreds of studies that have looked for and found no significant differences in health, fitness, longevity, and quality-of-life measures that couldn't be accounted for by social class and social stigma alone.
Mild overweight (and I'm talking about the five to fifteen pounds that the longevity and other studies have examined) isn't correlated with any terrible consequences, except those tied to socio-economic factors.
That's actually good news for most dieters, because it means that you can improve your health, even if you can't seem to get off the last 5 lbs that you'ld like to, and the last thing you need is social pressure convincing you that you're somehow inferior to the person who weighs 5 lbs less than you do.
We're focusing on the results of an unhealthy lifestyle rather than the lifestyle itself. All of my life I was taught to see diet and exercise as a means to an end. If you looked great and were thin, there was no pressing reason for you to eat well and exercise, and if you were fat, there was no pressing reason to eat sensibly and exercise - instead the pressure was to lose the weight as fast as possible, by any means necessary to become one of the "chosen people" the "acceptable people." How you lost the weight didn't matter as long as you did.
And there are still people dieting that way - and even many doctors convinced of it as well - that getting the weight off is more important than nutrition and fitness.
If we focused on nutrition, fitness, stress-management, and appropriate rest/sleep, independent of weight, I suspect that most weight issues would be half-resolved. Weight management is still going to be a challenge for some folks, but we've got to stop the "weight-loss-at-any-cost" culture.
We need to see weight loss as the reward/result of proper diet and exercise, not the goal in and of itself. If only for the very practical reason that it works.
Cognitive psychology research has consistently proven that people have greater and more consistent success when they focus on behaviors rather than on results. But with weight manangement we reverse that. We don't care about the behaviors as long as weight loss/thinness is the result.
Bella donna and lead powder were poisons used for cosmetic purposes in past eras. People today often assume that these men and women didn't know the risks/repurcutions of their actions (and some of them didn't) - but many of them did very well know the risks - they just were willing to take them for "quality of life."
We have to be careful not to make the same mistakes in weight loss. Tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of men and women in the US are willingly and knowingly taking extreme and unnecessary risks with their health, including insane methods of weight loss, for "quality of life" based solely on the culture's beauty aesthetic, and as a culture we say that's ok.
We want to be able to give a person a number and say "this is the exact right number for you," but there is no such thing. Your "right number" is probably a range, and some people are going to have a wider range than others.
We have to stop treating weight as if it were the be-all-and-end-all of physical and emotional health rather see it more realistically as just a single piece of the puzzle. Maybe for some people the most important piece, but still only a piece, and worth nothing at all except in conjunction with all the pieces around it.
By the same reasoning are you saying that someone 5 pounds less than the obese marker is at no increased risk of disease because they are still overweight not obese? I dont buy that either.
What I said and will still say is that a better study would be to measure the quality of life at age/weight markers rather than are you dead or not. It really is that simple. I havent made any judgement about morals or what is better or what isnt or whose healthier and who isnt and how you should lose weight or what you should weigh. Thats crap thats been brought in as an aside to make the conversation more inflamatory in my opinion. Ive never said that at all cause its a personal decision with personal consequences and I dont have to live the outcomes of your choices. Ive been clear that what you choose to do is what you choose to do. If you believe with all your heart that you can stroll the mall for 20 minutes once a week and be perfectly healthy at BMI 29.9999 with no diseases until your 102 good for you it really doesnt matter to me and well see where you are in 30 years.
I wonder why there is resistance to the idea of a study to look into this? Why is there resistance to the idea that if you are at increased risk of disease because you are heavy and you dont effect that outcome with diet/exercise you may just might not have a super quality of life when your 85? Maybe Im completely wrong I doubt it but maybe and wouldnt a study actually help to clear that up one way or the other?
It seems to me that what I said which was actually simple as in wouldnt a study measuring quality of life related to weight and heck throw in activity too be more interesting than a simple are you dead or not study?
Id totally welcome that kind of study. Until then I gotta base things on common sense. According to the studys Im gonna reduce my risk of a bunch of diseases if my weight is at a proper BMI and my waist measurement is favorable and my body fat percentage is good. If I can get down there lolol until then I accept Im at a higher risk and will do something about it. If I get to a healthy weight and I go 5 lbs over thats a warning sign to me to get back on track.
Disease processes and long term medication takes a toll on a body. Diseases that seem mild can get worse over years just like the effects of type 2 diabetes even when on pills. Knees and hips degenerate and lots of time extra body weight doesnt help the situation. Being on a pill forever has alot of unwanted sideeffects and sometimes you wont know or experience them for years. It would be interesting to have a study that looks at that instead of simply an alive or dead study. What you wanna believe is up to you cause thats not my point so you can argue/rationalize whatever you want on your own Im not gonna participate in the futility anymore.
I wonder why there is resistance to the idea of a study to look into this? Why is there resistance to the idea that if you are at increased risk of disease because you are heavy and you dont effect that outcome with diet/exercise you may just might not have a super quality of life when your 85?
There isn't resistance. These studies have been done, and they find that moderate overweight is not associated with ANY negative repercussions for quality of life, except those explained by social class and social stigma, as our previous posts have stated.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kaplods
The "mortality" studies aren't the only ones out there, so there are studies that do examine quality of life and other health and lifestyle measures... There are hundreds of studies that have looked for and found no significant differences in health, fitness, longevity, and quality-of-life measures that couldn't be accounted for by social class and social stigma alone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mandalinn82
There is essentially zero research linking MILD overweight, like this study is talking about, with significant medical issues. At all. Anything that shows an increase with "overweight" is using a classification of "BMI higher than 25 or 27", and includes all BMIs above that, so those studies include both overweight and obese people. If you can find research that shows a health risk for people with a BMI between 25 and 30 (not just for a BMI "above 25"), I'd love to see it, since I spent several hours last night looking.
By the same token, I wonder why there is such resistance to even considering the idea that research does not back the idea that "overweight" is less healthy than "normal", when there is actually a TON of research to that effect, regarding health, regarding mortality, etc.
