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textualdevianceI love it: (thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
weetanya for the link)
Annual Deaths Attributable To Obesity In The United States, which appeared in the Journal Of The American Medical Association (Jama) in 1999, is the source for the endlessly repeated statistic that overweight causes around 300,000 extra deaths in the US every year. (This "fact" has been cited in the major media more than 1,700 times in the past two years alone.) Look at these figures more closely. As Glenn Gaesser, a professor at the University of Virginia points out, studies have consistently failed to find any correlation between increasing BMI and higher mortality in people 65 and over, and 78% of the approximately 2.3 million annual deaths in the US occur among people who are at least 65. Thus, 78% of all deaths lack even the beginning of a statistical link with BMI. "That leaves 500,000 annual deaths in persons under 65 that might be related to BMI," Gaesser told me. "These include deaths from every possible cause: motor vehicle and other accidents, homicides, suicides, cigarettes, alcohol, microbial agents, toxic agents, drug abuse, etc, etc. To think that 60% [ie, 300,000] of these deaths are due to body fat is absolutely preposterous."
From this fabulous article. (Edit: oooh! That's an excerpt from a book! *buys*)
The BMI is bullshit science. Always has been. It doesn't take actual body composition into consideration. And many studies that link weight and various diseases don't control for other factors. They don't get, for instance, that just maybe, eating greasy burgers every day will lead both to getting fat, AND heart disease. It's not the getting fat that does it, it's the greasy burgers. A lot of people who are overweight also have dozens of other risk factors for illness including smoking, lack of exercise, etc. but for some reason, people obsess on the weight thing, as if that's far more important than any other risk factor. It's not. A thin person who smokes is at just as much risk for lung cancer as a fat person who smokes.
I think this obsession with weight as the key to every disease on earth is actually dangerous, because it gives naturally thin people a false sense of security. The fact is, no matter what you weigh, if you don't get proper nutrition, don't get active, don't sleep well and smoke like a chimney, you're going to get sick. Not only that, but recent studies have proven what I've been saying for a long time: that stress is probably the single most important contributing factor to most major illnesses. On a chemical level, it has to do with having too much free-floating adrenaline and cortisol in the system. On an affective level, it leads to muscle tension, digestive system upset, poor sleep (in itself crucial) and unhealthy eating habits. Plus, people who are overstressed often work too much, and don't have enough time or mental energy to get active. Unchecked stress also leads to depression, which comes with a host of problems of its own. Now, take a woman who is already trying to cope with working full time and raising kids and add to that stress constant worry about the "extra" 30 lbs she carries around her hips. (Not to mention the other frivolous things American women are told they're supposed to obsess over, like having a perfectly clean house, wearing the right clothes and having perfect hair and makeup.) What this pressure is doing is actually making this poor woman MORE at risk for getting sick! Chances are she's on a diet, and probably one which doesn't give her adequate levels of nutrients, nor keep her blood sugar consistent, which leads to tiredness, weakness, light-headedness and irritability. And chances are equally good that when she goes "off" her diet, eventually, she'll binge on nasty stuff to make up for what she couldn't have before. And probably gain back whatever she lost, plus a little more. Yeah, the poor woman's definitely not likely to be healthy. And it's not because she's "fat."
Now, my personal circumstances are (obviously) different, and that's a different thing entirely. But most people who are supposedly overweight probably are not unhealthy, so long as they're eating well, being active, staying away from excessive smoking, drinking, caffeine, and getting lots of sleep, play time and sex (probably one of the best and easiest stress-relief activities out there.) As it is, just about anyone who's more than, say 50-60 lbs overweight (and by that I mean fat weight, not muscle weight), if they're eating well and being active, probably has a metabolic disorder or simply a high genetic setpoint anyway. To consistently weigh 300 lbs, for instance, a person with a moderate activity level would have to be eating more than 3000 calories a day to maintain that weight. The extra weight you carry actually helps you burn more calories (because it takes more calories to move-- just like someone who weighed 150 lbs would lose weight more rapidly if they carried a 100 lb pack all the time) so you literally have to be not moving at all and eating like crazy to stay that size. As very few people at high weights like that actually do that, it's pretty obvious there are other factors involved. Yet people still get blamed for it anyway.
I'm all for people who want to eat better and get more active. Yay. But people who are constantly trying to starve themselves into unreasonable ideals of thinness are more than likely actually making themselves less healthy, rather than more. It isn't the extra weight in and of itself that's the problem. It's everything else you do. If you have a big ass, it's probably because your mom or your aunt has a big ass. If you have a tummy, your dad probably has one, too. It's normal. It's diversity of the species. Someone with Samoan ancestry is going to be built differently than someone with Cambodian ancestry. People are not all supposed to look like Aryan Barbie. The best diet and exercise program ever developed is your Mom's: eat your vegetables and go outside and play. Everything else is just someone trying to make money off your anxiety.
weetanya for the link)Annual Deaths Attributable To Obesity In The United States, which appeared in the Journal Of The American Medical Association (Jama) in 1999, is the source for the endlessly repeated statistic that overweight causes around 300,000 extra deaths in the US every year. (This "fact" has been cited in the major media more than 1,700 times in the past two years alone.) Look at these figures more closely. As Glenn Gaesser, a professor at the University of Virginia points out, studies have consistently failed to find any correlation between increasing BMI and higher mortality in people 65 and over, and 78% of the approximately 2.3 million annual deaths in the US occur among people who are at least 65. Thus, 78% of all deaths lack even the beginning of a statistical link with BMI. "That leaves 500,000 annual deaths in persons under 65 that might be related to BMI," Gaesser told me. "These include deaths from every possible cause: motor vehicle and other accidents, homicides, suicides, cigarettes, alcohol, microbial agents, toxic agents, drug abuse, etc, etc. To think that 60% [ie, 300,000] of these deaths are due to body fat is absolutely preposterous."
From this fabulous article. (Edit: oooh! That's an excerpt from a book! *buys*)
The BMI is bullshit science. Always has been. It doesn't take actual body composition into consideration. And many studies that link weight and various diseases don't control for other factors. They don't get, for instance, that just maybe, eating greasy burgers every day will lead both to getting fat, AND heart disease. It's not the getting fat that does it, it's the greasy burgers. A lot of people who are overweight also have dozens of other risk factors for illness including smoking, lack of exercise, etc. but for some reason, people obsess on the weight thing, as if that's far more important than any other risk factor. It's not. A thin person who smokes is at just as much risk for lung cancer as a fat person who smokes.
I think this obsession with weight as the key to every disease on earth is actually dangerous, because it gives naturally thin people a false sense of security. The fact is, no matter what you weigh, if you don't get proper nutrition, don't get active, don't sleep well and smoke like a chimney, you're going to get sick. Not only that, but recent studies have proven what I've been saying for a long time: that stress is probably the single most important contributing factor to most major illnesses. On a chemical level, it has to do with having too much free-floating adrenaline and cortisol in the system. On an affective level, it leads to muscle tension, digestive system upset, poor sleep (in itself crucial) and unhealthy eating habits. Plus, people who are overstressed often work too much, and don't have enough time or mental energy to get active. Unchecked stress also leads to depression, which comes with a host of problems of its own. Now, take a woman who is already trying to cope with working full time and raising kids and add to that stress constant worry about the "extra" 30 lbs she carries around her hips. (Not to mention the other frivolous things American women are told they're supposed to obsess over, like having a perfectly clean house, wearing the right clothes and having perfect hair and makeup.) What this pressure is doing is actually making this poor woman MORE at risk for getting sick! Chances are she's on a diet, and probably one which doesn't give her adequate levels of nutrients, nor keep her blood sugar consistent, which leads to tiredness, weakness, light-headedness and irritability. And chances are equally good that when she goes "off" her diet, eventually, she'll binge on nasty stuff to make up for what she couldn't have before. And probably gain back whatever she lost, plus a little more. Yeah, the poor woman's definitely not likely to be healthy. And it's not because she's "fat."
Now, my personal circumstances are (obviously) different, and that's a different thing entirely. But most people who are supposedly overweight probably are not unhealthy, so long as they're eating well, being active, staying away from excessive smoking, drinking, caffeine, and getting lots of sleep, play time and sex (probably one of the best and easiest stress-relief activities out there.) As it is, just about anyone who's more than, say 50-60 lbs overweight (and by that I mean fat weight, not muscle weight), if they're eating well and being active, probably has a metabolic disorder or simply a high genetic setpoint anyway. To consistently weigh 300 lbs, for instance, a person with a moderate activity level would have to be eating more than 3000 calories a day to maintain that weight. The extra weight you carry actually helps you burn more calories (because it takes more calories to move-- just like someone who weighed 150 lbs would lose weight more rapidly if they carried a 100 lb pack all the time) so you literally have to be not moving at all and eating like crazy to stay that size. As very few people at high weights like that actually do that, it's pretty obvious there are other factors involved. Yet people still get blamed for it anyway.
I'm all for people who want to eat better and get more active. Yay. But people who are constantly trying to starve themselves into unreasonable ideals of thinness are more than likely actually making themselves less healthy, rather than more. It isn't the extra weight in and of itself that's the problem. It's everything else you do. If you have a big ass, it's probably because your mom or your aunt has a big ass. If you have a tummy, your dad probably has one, too. It's normal. It's diversity of the species. Someone with Samoan ancestry is going to be built differently than someone with Cambodian ancestry. People are not all supposed to look like Aryan Barbie. The best diet and exercise program ever developed is your Mom's: eat your vegetables and go outside and play. Everything else is just someone trying to make money off your anxiety.
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Exactly. I'm still really bitter that back when I was a young teen, and a very healthy, athletic size 12-14, I got so much shit for that that I ended up getting an eating disorder, which helped spark the chain of events that led to being the size I am now.
Meh.