One of the first things you will notice is how tall people there are. The second thing you'll notice is that food portions in restaurants and cafeterias are much smaller. Strangely, nobody starves.
"One of the first things you will notice is how short people there are. The second thing you'll notice is that food portions in restaurants and cafeterias are much larger. Strangely, everybody feels hungry all the time."
You shouldn't feel callous - you have a good point and honestly deserve to feel good about yourself. Obesity, or rather weight in general, for some reason has become a touchy subject. It seems now mentioning someone's weight is taboo.
The truth is, people need a wake up call. Being overweight gets way too much not only protection, but positive reinforcement. It's a tricky one to solve - you don't want overweight people to hate themselves or suffer, but at the same time you need the nation as a whole to recognize this as a dangerous issue and address it.
I don't agree. BMI accounts for height by its own definition and for health/body types by leaving large margins for the definitions of normal/overweight/obese.
It might not be a precise measure for some individuals (athletic, heavy muscled males) but what percentage are those in the context of a whole country ?
As an average/indicator over a large sample is perfectly acceptable, in my opinion.
I disagree. A 182cm (6ft) person can weigh only 82 kg (~180lbs) to be not considered overweight. If you have any amount of muscle and don't have a single digit bodyfat percentage, you're easily overweight according to BMI. And it only gets worse when you get taller. Similarly, short people can be seriously fat and not be considered overweight according to BMI. The exponent in the BMI formula should be larger than 2.
I don't know. My husband is 6'4" and is scrawny build but with a bit of extra around the middle and he can feels 'overweight' right around the same time he hits the BMI level. I'm 4'11" and definitely feel the that BMI is correct with how my body feels.
BMI is const x weight/height^2. Volume is proportional to height^3, unless you believe tall people grow in only 2 directions. So BMI ~ height. That's why most of the NBA is obese.
Everyone mentions athletes whenever BMI is mentioned.
Most people are not athletes. Most people do very little exercise. When using BMI for an individual you ask them if they do any exercise, but for populations it's fine.
I mention the NBA due to height, not athleticism. BMI is an overestimate for tall people and an underestimate for short people, due to the scaling law I described.
Some groups of athletes list overweight because muscle is very dense - BMI doesn't distinguish between muscle and fat.
However, this does not mean that BMI is useless even here - overweight athletes often suffer similar medical conditions as overweight people generally.
People in the Netherlands tend to get more obese, but less extreme than in the USA on average. The Netherlands just follows behind in this trend.
I'm from the Netherlands myself. I don't like to dine out, because usually you get a too small amount of fresh produce.
It could be that Dutchies get more exercise on average, because we like to ride bikes to work, etc.
We all could do with the advise from dr. Fuhrman from the USA (www.drfuhrman.com): eat significantly more fruit, vegetables and beans and less processed foods. Increase the nutrient density of your diets: instant weight loss and health gain.
People might eat a little healthier in The Netherlands than the USA, but honestly all Western countries could improve a lot on this.
This article makes the mistake that greater body length equals healthier lifespan. There is no positive correlation, maybe even a negative correlation, because longer people have more body cells. Longer people often develop back problems.
The first time I visited America I was shocked at the portion sizes. I ate at a nice Italian restaurant. We took home the leftovers from my meal and that managed to feed another two people. I think it's the attitude that excess is good/bigger is better that's the problem.
Mexico is not a poor country. It's GDP/capita (PPP adjusted) is similar to Poland or Lithuania. Not exactly the US or UK, but there isn't any shortage of chicharrones or chimichangas.
There's nothing wrong with it. My point was that a lot of people won't do that - they'll eat the portion put in front of them regardless of size. And in my experience American portion sizes were 2-3x what I was used to.
Americans seems pretty short nowadays compared to some countries in Europe, where average is near 5-11 and a few over 6'. Still a few short countries here in Europe too.
Good luck with that, as there are about 2 weeks of nice summer weather per year. Try Aruba, Curaçao or Sint Maarten (if you don't mind being jet blasted), they're part of the kingdom of the Netherlands so technically still the Netherlands.
This looks like a mean rather than a median distribution,so our American here is probably heavier than than the "average" normal. Weight distributions are starting to skew to the right due to the existence of a small percentage of utterly massive individuals. 15 kilos under normal weight is extremely skinny while being overweight can go into over 100 kilos at the extremes.
The worrying thing about this is the shift in perception.
Most people are going to put Todd at "a bit over weight", but not "near obese". Add a few kilos to Todd to tip him into obesity, and most people are not going to see much difference.
Give people a Todd image of BMI > 35, with no physical activity, and still most people aren't going to call that Todd obese. And if it's a woman the discussion suddenly becomes polarised with accusations of "fat shaming" and "healthism" and "nanny state" and "causing eating disorders". Very obese women are called "curvy" or "voluptuous". Any attempt to discuss the health effects of over weight are dismissed as a fascistic attempt to control other people.
There are so many weird ideas around obesity - "it's not sugar, it's high fructose corn syrup! We weren't overweight until HFCS!". Maybe HFCS is worse than regular sugar, but we also didn't use to drink 64 fluid ounces of 10% sugar syrup. (http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/01/the-7-11-dou...)
We also didn't used to have the government telling us to increase our consumption of grains and carbs and decrease our consumption of saturated fat. HFCS also didn't used to be in every piece of packaged food in the grocery store. I used to be able to buy pizza sauce without having to painstakingly search for one without soy in it.
You're right, there are many weird ideas around obesity. They start with many weird ideas about food in general.
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 82.2 ms ] threadI see the average getting fatter and therefore that makes me more attractive because I am tall and lean.
Obviously I'm not thinking long term about societies healthcare costs. But right now I'm feeling pretty smug.
The truth is, people need a wake up call. Being overweight gets way too much not only protection, but positive reinforcement. It's a tricky one to solve - you don't want overweight people to hate themselves or suffer, but at the same time you need the nation as a whole to recognize this as a dangerous issue and address it.
It might not be a precise measure for some individuals (athletic, heavy muscled males) but what percentage are those in the context of a whole country ?
As an average/indicator over a large sample is perfectly acceptable, in my opinion.
Most people are not athletes. Most people do very little exercise. When using BMI for an individual you ask them if they do any exercise, but for populations it's fine.
Some groups of athletes list overweight because muscle is very dense - BMI doesn't distinguish between muscle and fat.
However, this does not mean that BMI is useless even here - overweight athletes often suffer similar medical conditions as overweight people generally.
I'm from the Netherlands myself. I don't like to dine out, because usually you get a too small amount of fresh produce.
It could be that Dutchies get more exercise on average, because we like to ride bikes to work, etc.
We all could do with the advise from dr. Fuhrman from the USA (www.drfuhrman.com): eat significantly more fruit, vegetables and beans and less processed foods. Increase the nutrient density of your diets: instant weight loss and health gain. People might eat a little healthier in The Netherlands than the USA, but honestly all Western countries could improve a lot on this.
This article makes the mistake that greater body length equals healthier lifespan. There is no positive correlation, maybe even a negative correlation, because longer people have more body cells. Longer people often develop back problems.
Apparently wealth and the culture of abundance are not the only factors affecting obesity.
Most people are going to put Todd at "a bit over weight", but not "near obese". Add a few kilos to Todd to tip him into obesity, and most people are not going to see much difference.
Give people a Todd image of BMI > 35, with no physical activity, and still most people aren't going to call that Todd obese. And if it's a woman the discussion suddenly becomes polarised with accusations of "fat shaming" and "healthism" and "nanny state" and "causing eating disorders". Very obese women are called "curvy" or "voluptuous". Any attempt to discuss the health effects of over weight are dismissed as a fascistic attempt to control other people.
There are so many weird ideas around obesity - "it's not sugar, it's high fructose corn syrup! We weren't overweight until HFCS!". Maybe HFCS is worse than regular sugar, but we also didn't use to drink 64 fluid ounces of 10% sugar syrup. (http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/01/the-7-11-dou...)
You're right, there are many weird ideas around obesity. They start with many weird ideas about food in general.