Comments on: Weight is not an accurate measure of health

By: Lu

Lu — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 19:06:04 +0000

I’m not sure if this was Sailorman’s point, but it’s human nature to judge other people to be inferior, especially people who are different from the judger in some way, and it’s human nature to use an obvious and easily measurable feature to do it. Thus women are “self-evidently” inferior to men because the average woman can’t run as fast or lift as much weight as the average man.

(Why human nature works this way I don’t know, but I speculate that it has to do with group membership and group cohesion, which improve the individual’s survival prospects.)

By: Stefan

Stefan — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:05:22 +0000

I’m not sure you can justify using weight as a barometer at all when (a) the correlation is nowhere near 100%,

the correlation between smoking and lung cancer is not 100% , either.

By: SharonC

SharonC — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 23:26:14 +0000

Sailorman wrote:

In part, because a 6 year old can learn to measure their weight (or someone else’s weight) in 10 seconds using commonly available and extremely inexpensive equipment.

My point was why are we rushing to JUDGE people’s bodies, not what measurement is most handy to get judgemental with.

By: Sailorman

Sailorman — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 18:13:34 +0000

“Why are we so interested in rushing to judge people’s bodies based on their size?”

In part, because a 6 year old can learn to measure their weight (or someone else’s weight) in 10 seconds using commonly available and extremely inexpensive equipment.

The benefit and costs of a certain measure need to take into account the issues raised in collecting the data.

See, e.g., “why do we use the SAT instead of having detailed personal interviews?;” “why do people judge politicians based on soundbites when they could know so much more in a week or two of research?;” “Way do you screen resumes instead of interviewing everyone;” etc

By: SharonC

SharonC — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:19:15 +0000

I get the point, that weight is not [b]the[/b] barometer of health. But it seems like you have to do some creative shuffling of numbers here to conclude that it’s not indicating that weight is [b]a[/b] barometer.

When is something actually useful as a measurement instrument for health? How strong does that correlation have to be?

I’m not sure you can justify using weight as a barometer at all when (a) the correlation is nowhere near 100%, and (b) so much harm results from the use of weight as a barometer.

Why the imperative to use weight as a barometer? After all, weight isn’t a behaviour, it’s a characteristic. All kinds of characteristics are positively and negatively related to aspects of health. Why are we so interested in rushing to judge people’s bodies based on their size? Could it be that some judgemental types find that they get more joy out of shaming other people than they get out of genuine concern for health?

By: peggynature

peggynature — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:02:03 +0000

…and what a glorious bang it was.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:06:27 +0000

In other words, it is possible for fat people to be healthy and thin people to be not healthy. Why is this considered such shocking news? Oh right, fat = bad and walking death. Sorry about that.

By: Eva

Eva — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 01:49:45 +0000

“But the default assumption is usually that the bigger you are, the unhealthier you are, period - and that leads not only to pretty outrageous fat-shaming, but to a distorted and unrealistic idea of how wellbeing is measured.”

Nicely put, Girl Detective

By: The Girl Detective

The Girl Detective — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:02:44 +0000

No one’s arguing that weight is never an indicator of health, or that sudden changes shouldn’t be cause for concern. But the default assumption is usually that the bigger you are, the unhealthier you are, period - and that leads not only to pretty outrageous fat-shaming, but to a distorted and unrealistic idea of how wellbeing is measured.

By: Sailorman

Sailorman — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 23:46:06 +0000

absolute weight may not be an indicator of health, but changes in weight are, AFAIK, a fairly important indicator to at least ask “why?”

By: jennhi

jennhi — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:48:40 +0000

Okay, while I don’t like the idea that I’m getting judged from the moment I step into the doctor’s office (which means “Get on the scale please”), I do understand there’s a good reason for it: sudden weight gain or loss is definitely an indicator of a health problem.

That wasn’t the point of the article, sure, but it was also implied that weigh-ins are unnecessary in a doctor’s office. Just wanted to make that aspect clear.

By: Amadan

Amadan — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:07:33 +0000

Er, or put another way, 25% of slim people have risk factors, 50% of overweight people do, and 66% of obese people do.

I get the point, that weight is not [b]the[/b] barometer of health. But it seems like you have to do some creative shuffling of numbers here to conclude that it’s not indicating that weight is [b]a[/b] barometer.