But compute my BMI, and it puts me at ‘overweight’. BMI is useless for people who are active enough to have significant muscle. I would not be surpruised that the study is actually reflecting the health of people whose active lifestyle has pushed into the ‘overweight’ category.

It’s a gross error for me to say fat people are unattractive. However, I feel completely comfortable saying fat people are unattractive to me. Attractivness to one another is like fitting a key to a lock. Either it fits or it doesn’t! I’m not concerned with the reasons why they are unattractive to me, I just know that they are!
Do y’all think something is wrong with me for feeling that way?

No, you have every right to find something attractive and other things unattractive. I personally believe that is someone out there in this large universe who will find something attractive that I may or may not. Some are attracted to hair color, I find myself attracted to men and women who stimulate my mind. Go figure. I will admit that this is the only place where we are about to agree upon.

Why is it that so many women flirt with me when I’m an old guy and not particularly good looking? I believe it’s because I walk five miles per day, lift weights, and do aerobics three times a week. I have always been careful about my eating habits and tend to eat more protein than most. I have always taken vitamins and mineral supplements. My doctor has told me repetedly that I’m in excellent condition and I should live a long healthy life. Everything works and nothing hurts! I do not worry about being fat because I prevent the possibility!/blockquote>

Here I would have to disagree with you. Perhaps you don’t view yourself as good looking in the context of looking like the men you see on tv or in movies, but obviously these women find your facial configuration attractive. You seem to have confidence in yourself and I think this come across to women in a good light. However, I have other issues with this statement too. You don’t worry about fat because you prevent the possiblity? I believe there are other factors involved with fat besides lifestyle choices. Perhaps you have good genetics as well as your commitment to your health. Still, I find it horrible that you are somehow linking fat=laziness. True, you don’t state it openly but you do insiduate that you don’t worry about becoming fat because you are a hard worker and if everyone was a hard-worker they wouldn’t have to worry about it either.

>blockquote>Back to my question about why women constantly flirt with me. It’s simply that people who take care of themselves and do the best they can with what God gave them have a healthy glow about them which other people are naturally attracted to. If you allow yourself to get fat, you may be healthy, but you will not have as much energy for daily activities because you will get tired lugging around the extra weight. You will also be attractive to far fewer people regardless whether it’s justified or not! Another huge advantage of not being fat is that usually you and the people you associate with are always in a good mood and are fun to be around. They don’t wallow in self pity and constantly try to find reasons why being fat is ok.

This is what I have the most problem with. Are you indicating that people who “allow” themselves to get fat can’t have a healthy glow? You state that the “may be healthy” but have no extra energy due to lugging around all the extra weight with them. You also seem to indicate because you are not fat and your friends (or social circle) are not fat that you have more fun because hey you guys are physically fit and don’t need to figure out if thin is okay to be, but fat people wallow in self-pity and try to find reasons (where there are none, seems to be indicated by this above statement). I imagine that if you are as physically fit you carry around your weight in muscle. Does that mean men and women who have quite a bit of muscle must be a drag to be around since they don’t have that healthy glow due to all the energy the put out carrying around the extra weight? Muscle has weight as much as fat does. By your theory they would be carrying around excess weight too. Do you mean to say that acceptance should only come to people who are fit? Do you know a lot of self-pitying fat people or fate people in general? I am confused there. You seem to indicate that you only hang around with people who-like you-are physically fit. It seeems that you buying into a lot of stereo-types about fat people.

I also don’t quite follow the whole beginning of the thread being related to fat in the first place. You equate being fit with women flirting with you. Are you saying that if you are unfit, no one will flirt with you?

I know I am being a little disjointed in my response so I am going to finish this by showing why I am a little offended by this comment. You see, I also get my fair share of compliments and flirtations by those of the fair sex both male and female. I am a huge flirt, and bisexual in case you wonder why I point out the flirtation on both sides.

I am constantly being approached by people I work with and those I went to school with about my constant energy, healthy glow and wonderful personality. I don’t mope, I don’t agonize over myself. I accept myself just fine.

In case, Don, you are wondering why I am offended when obviously I am fit, healthy and have no complaints about my energy level?

I am (big dramatic pause) morbidly obese. I am 5′11 and weigh 380 pounds. I walk anywhere from 4-8 miles a day, I chase two young children and have a wonderful life and a great social circle. Acceptance is a cause that shouldn’t be limited to those who are physically fit. When you live in a society that thumbs its nose at you, it can be a struggle to figure where you fit. Everyone goes through an emotional gambit trying to find themselves.

Maybe you didn’t mean it the way it sounded, but as a large and postive gal I wanted to show you that I felt some of your response just seemed wrong to me.

Why is it that so many women flirt with me when I’m an old guy and not particularly good looking? I believe it’s because I walk five miles per day, lift weights, and do aerobics three times a week. I have always been careful about my eating habits and tend to eat more protein than most. I have always taken vitamins and mineral supplements. My doctor has told me repetedly that I’m in excellent condition and I should live a long healthy life. Everything works and nothing hurts! I do not worry about being fat because I prevent the possibility!
Back to my question about why women constantly flirt with me. It’s simply that people who take care of themselves and do the best they can with what God gave them have a healthy glow about them which other people are naturally attracted to. If you allow yourself to get fat, you may be healthy, but you will not have as much energy for daily activities because you will get tired lugging around the extra weight. You will also be attractive to far fewer people regardless whether it’s justified or not! Another huge advantage of not being fat is that usually you and the people you associate with are always in a good mood and are fun to be around. They don’t wallow in self pity and constantly try to find reasons why being fat is ok.

As I reread my blog, I sound awfully self-rightious. I apologize to those of you who are thinking the same thing. I’m not a gifted writer but will try to do better in the future.

I wonder, if fat were actually the cause of illnesses like high blood pressure and diabetes, wouldn’t there be some study which shows that once the cause is removed (weight is lost) the disease is cured, too? I know of no such study. Instead, as you say, studies assume that fat is bad and interpret results from there.

I am grateful that my personal physician seems to get this. She has yet to look at my weight (235 lbs, 5′8″) and prescribe a treatment for me, or even suggest that I need to lose weight. She apparently understands that a moderate, varied diet, exercise, stress management, and plenty of rest are the things we KNOW affect health in a positive way long term, all of which are part of my daily life. If she didn’t understand these things, it’s safe to say I’d be finding another physician.

No one can say with certainty why people are fat because the question has never been addressed in those terms. The assumption in studies done on “obesity” is that being fat is a condition of the body that is not normal.

Risk factors are quite difficult to put a handle on. They usually come in two flavors — behavioral and physical. Having unprotected sex with strangers is an example of the first. Being African-American is an example of the second. Having unprotected sex with strangers puts one at risk for STDs and unwanted pregnancies. Being African-American puts one at risk for sickle cell anemia. So stating that being fat is a risk factor is fraught with hidden meanings and potential misunderstandings.

See the problem is that many people believe that being fat is a risk factor in the first category. Fat people are fat because they overeat. Teach kids good eating habits and exercise habits and they won’t get fat is the basic premise of “obesity prevention” in youth.

But consider for a minute if indeed being fat is really the second category. Sure eating and exercise may account for some variation, but genetics seems to account for quite a bit in twin studies (and those are the only studies that really have considered the question at all). Sleeping a good night’s sleep makes you slightly taller in the morning. That doesn’t make sleep a cure for shortness, nor does it reduce the risk of several conditions that plague short people more often than tall people.

Eating well and exercising have many other benefits besides its effect on size. No one is saying — oh look now we can all eat twinkies and never have to worry again. See, that is the problem with this whole fat-phobia — we keep forgetting the health part.

So when you say “Obesity is a risk factor” or “being a lot overweight is unhealthy” I think you are unmarking a lot of assumptions. What if (and I’m just suggesting this because again no one really knows scientifically, though it has been my experience personally)…what if being fat is like being African American. Sure being fat is a risk factor, but does losing weight reduce that risk? I know you will quote me all sorts of studies regarding WLS patients who have less trouble with diabetes and sleep apnea, but those studies do not consider changes in diet or exercise which might have created those positive results on morbidity with cutting away someone’s perfectly good stomach. Those studies also suffer from “the rather be dead than fat” attitude as they do not include people who died after WLS.

Holding out weight loss as a means to reduce risk could be tantamount to prescribing skin lightening treatments to young African Americans to reduce their risk of sickle cell anemia.

So what can we do? I mean no one knows for sure why people are fat, so how can we resolve this without finding the funding and the experts to really study why people are fat (instead of assuming that fat is automatically bad and then studying how to get rid of it).

Well, I think we turn to the hippocratic oath: “First do no harm.” Don’t do a treatment until you are sure that it is will do good. By defining fat as inherently bad, a whole bunch of people making a whole bunch of money can now get the (supposed) protectors of our health to okay treatments that are quite harmful. We have known since the mid-1960s that dieting was harmful with 25% of the perfectly healthy young fat men who participated in a study in which they lost more than 75 pounds each were dead within five years of the study. I can’t remember how many times greater than the expected death rate that was for 20-something males, but I remember being very angry that no one saw fit to follow up on such findings.

We know that dieting and intentional weight loss harms health. We know that eating well and exercise improves health. We do not know why people are fat. We do not know if losing weight for a long period of time affords the same benefits to formally fat people as it does to people who were never fat. We do not know if fat could or should be prevented. And the CDC cannot make up its mind how big of a risk factor being fat is or what exactly being fat does or does not put one in risk of getting.

IMHO, all of this adds up to getting off fat people’s backs, leaving kids alone about their weight, and worrying about something else besides weight loss.

Brian
I find you comments perplexing - the study does make it clear that being overweight (BMInot say that fat people are not attractive. Your vituperative language is both hurtful and unneccessary.

Paul - the point about the CDC study on fat kids is that these kids are not included in the original study (because they were too young). As many people here have pointed out - cure(i.e. weight loss) is problematic. So preventing unecessary obesity seems like an important issue to raise.

Here is a possibility for you to consider: obesity (how about we just call it fat?) is something that is not “preventable.” Fat is what it is, and health is the thing that needs to be focused on, if anything. The myriad programs talking about “improving kids’ health” are blanketed in the anti-fat fervor, and it’s really frustrating - in addition to pointless.

I also take issue with your use of the term “cure” for fat. Fat is not a disease and does not require a cure. I’m curious what your “cure” would be for excessive height, darkened skin color, or the female gender. I exaggerate slightly but my point should be pretty clear: fat is an attribute. It is a part of one’s body. It is not an illness, not a disease, and not the root of all evil.

Also much of the previous threads on this subject here have been taken up with discussion about the construction of beauty as thinness. The point I’m making is that whether beauty is contructed(construed) as thinness or as fatness, beauty should not override health issues.

Previous threads, perhaps. But your words suggest that you find fat so very unhealthy that the idea of people finding fat attractive is appalling - as Brian notes above. That’s a personal problem (one exhibited by many anonymous fatphobes littered across the web) that needs to be tackled, but it’s a deeply-rooted stigma as well - and it smacks of an incredible, incredible amount of ignorance and immaturity.

found that being overweight (i.e. BMI 25 - 30) slightly reduces the risk of dying and that being obese(i.e. BMI > 30) rapidly increases the risk of dying.

Wow. That’s an amazingly dishonest slight of hand. Honestly, I don’t know how to call that quote anything but a flat out lie.

Being “overweight” reduces deaths by over 86,000 and you see this as a “slight” reduction. Meanwhile, being “extremely obese” increases morbidity by 82,000 and you see this as cause for declaring it a “rapid increase”? Oh, right. You lumped the merely “obese” into your declaration even though the increased risk there was a very modest 30,000. So that modest difference (nearly 1/3 of the decrease in risk for the “overweight” that you declared slight) is enough to push the risk from a slight increase to a “rapid” increase. Stunningly inconsistant logic, but not at all unexpected. I knew it wouldn’t take long for someone to declare the nearly equal ammounts in the decrease for the “overweight” and the increase in the “obese” and act as if its massive difference.

Oh, another thing. So the risk of being “obese” is now in the neighborhood of 100,000 once you forget about the benefits of being “overweight” which is still being aggressively targeted by folks like the CDC who’ve promised to ignore their data. That’s still a quarter of what they said it was last year. And it still doesn’t control for the risks associated with the failing “treatments” fat people are subjected to.

And as bean points out, the standards for “overweight” have changed dramatically and that never gets recalled when making scary statements like you just did. Now that all people classified as “overweight” have actually been shown to be significantly healthier than “normal” weight people, the folly of depending on these manipulated numbers is all the more clear.

Lastly, arguing that obesity should be sexy without considering it’s health consequence is just as wrong as arguing that thinness is sexy without considering the health consequences (e.g. anorexia).

Was that even brought up in this thread? Or, is this really what gets you? The idea that fat people might be seen as beautiful really just gets on your nerves. How dare they! How dare they get the rights you’ve fought so hard for yourself. Gotta be something wrong with that, right? Gotta make sure you can attack them if it ever comes up. Heck, even when it doesn’t come up. Well, just so you know, the point made is not that fat is sexy and unhealthy. Its that fat can be seen as sexy and can be just as normally healthy as anything else. Your view that no one gets to disagree with your “fat is deadly” pronoucements isn’t recognized, so the problem you see for people who want to think fat is beautiful doesn’t apply.

mythago I don’t understand what your saying about bypass operations. The point that was being made is that the secular reduction in the amount of deaths(since 1970) that can be attributed to obesity is due to the success in treating heart disease (eg with bypasses). Also the point about the statistics varying is that the authors examined this and used this to establish error bars about their conclusons. The errors being talked about are matters of degree not questions of proving or disproving the hypothesis. The reason they looked at the possiblity of these things was to ensure the robustness of their conclusions.

Paul - the point about the CDC study on fat kids is that these kids are not included in the original study (because they were too young). As many people here have pointed out - cure(i.e. weight loss) is problematic. So preventing unecessary obesity seems like an important issue to raise.

Also much of the previous threads on this subject here have been taken up with discussion about the construction of beauty as thinness. The point I’m making is that whether beauty is contructed(construed) as thinness or as fatness, beauty should not override health issues.

What in the world do physical attraction and personal preferences have to do with anything anyone has said here? Kyan, I’m also wondering why you would even mention the CDC’s study on fat kids.

Then you really can’t pick one conclusion to be wrong, can you? If ’slightly fat is better’ could be wrong depending on how you vary the number, so can ’slightly thin is better.’

As I recall the CDC also links obesity to poor diet and lack of exercise. A fat person who eats healthy food and exercises moderately isn’t cheating the statistics with a bypass operation.

These relative risks have decreased over the last 30 years because the major cause of death associated with obesity, heart disease, has seen marked improvements in survival rates. Fat people still have more heart attacks but they get bypasses and live on. The authors repeatedly make the point that varying the means of measurement and varying the number of people in weight categories will have significant affects on the statistical results produced. These are known problems of broadscale studies of this nature.

Also we should bear in mind that according to the CDC
the number of children who are overwieght in the U.S. has doubled in the last 30 years. The affect of this is not measured in this study because the youngest particpants would have been 18 in 1990(roughly).

Lastly, arguing that obesity should be sexy without considering it’s health consequence is just as wrong as arguing that thinness is sexy without considering the health consequences (e.g. anorexia).

We have a winnah!

I am curious what this will mean for the caloric restriction people (and there was some comment on that in the NYT article)…