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42% of American adults will be obese by 2030, study says

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If we set up vast liposuction facilities perhaps we can render fat into fuel, creating a new home grown alternative energy industry.
The energy required just to perform liposuction in the first place isn't worth it. Skip the fat middleman and all that time and muscle power required can instead be spent hand-cranking a battery and it'll be more efficient and extract more energy.

BMI is absolutely worthless. How are you supposed to know if you're someone whose BMI is a good indicator of their fitness or not? You do NOT need a lot of muscle mass for the BMI to not apply to you. There was a discussion about this a little over a couple years ago and I posted a picture of myself proving I was in shape but certainly anything but a musclehead- in fact I was doing mostly cardio with some light dumbbell lifting at the time. My BMI was slightly above the overweight line. It's a bullshit, unscientific measurement.
Posts like this and others make me chuckle due to the incredible lack of foresight. There is no other single measurement standard for obesity that is even remotely as easily achievable as BMI. Height, weight. Pretty difficult measurements to fuck up in a big way and easily measurable in any health clinic. Compare that with waist circumference or any other similar measuring system. Most RNs don't even fucking know where the waist is, especially in fatter people who do not have the hourglass figure. If 10 RNs can't measure a waist consistently to agree with each other, I doubt 1000 nurse's aides will either. They can look it up on Wikipedia and they'll still fuck it up. It's called interobserver variability and BMI is the least likely (in addition to being CHEAP) to have high variance amongst different testers.

Or maybe you're suggesting that the government raise taxes to pay for all the new calipers, x-ray machines, and water tanks that each clinic will need to measure body fat percentage. I'm sure any new insight brought out from those investments will truly change the course of research in obesity.
 

Red

Member
I think it's a pretty normal, likely very healthy weight. It's definitely nowhere near "scrawny," though. A few people comment and say I'm scrawny when I have my shirt on and stuff, but I've got a bit of a belly growing. That's why I think if I gained another 10 pounds I'd feel overweight. I suppose though everything else on my body is pretty decent and 10 pounds evenly spread out probably wouldn't do much. But my belly? Yeah, not great.
I guess each person carries the weight differently.
 

industrian

will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
The Japanese have the longest average lifespan in the world eating rice every day.

Carbs, simple or not, do not make you fat nor unhealthy. It is how much you eat, plain and simple.

Nothing about diet, weight loss/maintenance, and fitness is plain and simple. It's all actually very complex and pointing your finger at one issue in a vacuum and declaring it a problem (or not a problem) is pointless.

The East Asian diet/lifestyle definitely works for maintaining a healthy weight. Barely any sugary or sweet foods, slower eating, and 6-8 small meals instead of 3 huge ones. That and there's very little "recreational eating." Eating is a more of a social experience than a race to see how much shit you can cram down your throat.
 
Posts like this and others make me chuckle due to the incredible lack of foresight. There is no other single measurement standard for obesity that is even remotely as easily achievable as BMI. Height, weight. Pretty difficult measurements to fuck up in a big way and easily measurable in any health clinic. Compare that with waist circumference or any other measuring similar measuring system. Most RNs don't even fucking know where the waist is, especially in fatter people who do not have the hourglass figure. If 10 RNs can't measure a waist consistently to agree with each other, I doubt 1000 nurse's aides will either. They can look it up on Wikipedia and they'll still fuck it up. It's called interobserver variability and BMI is the least likely (in addition to being CHEAP) to have high variance amongst different testers.

Hey man, measuring those waists can be very difficult. Sometimes it's genuinly hard to tell where the waist is lol.

You really are spot on here though. We sometimes get patients with distended abdomens (due to bowel problems) where we have to measure to see if their abdomen is growing. Honestly if there isn't a line drawn showing where to measure (and often this doesn't help) than you get all sorts of weird measurements.
 

Bealost

Member
Do we really need some mundane measurement of BMI to tell us we are fat? Look it the damned mirror. BMI is fine for your average doesn't really workout type of person. Those of us that DO work out hard know the scale doesn't apply to us so we can just ignore it.
 

SeanR1221

Member
I think people also have this notion that obese= morbidly obese. Like waddling, fupa, sweating while eating morbidly obese. They think since they don't look like that, they're not obese.
 

industrian

will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
Do we really need some mundane measurement of BMI to tell us we are fat? Look it the damned mirror. BMI is fine for your average doesn't really workout type of person. Those of us that DO work out hard know the scale doesn't apply to us so we can just ignore it.

BMI is not intended for use if you work out, are athletic or have a fairly active lifestyle.

It's intended solely for couch potatoes and people with sedentary lifestyles.
 
Hey man, measuring those waists can be very difficult. Sometimes it's genuinly hard to tell where the waist is lol.

You really are spot on here though. We sometimes get patients with distended abdomens (due to bowel problems) where we have to measure to see if their abdomen is growing. Honestly if there isn't a line drawn showing where to measure (and often this doesn't help) than you get all sorts of weird measurements.
If I were you I would tell whichever doctor that placed that stupid order to stop being a lazy ass and perform serial abdominal exams or at least put in a Foley catheter to measure bladder pressures.
 

Jangocube

Banned
Ugh, that's a gross statistic. I know a lot of people that are fighting to lose weight. The main thing I see in my peers that are overweight is the lack of portion control. I go out to restaurants or eat with them at work and they, more often then not, eat their entire meal.

People don't seem to understand just how much restaurants pile on the plates in an attempt to make the consumer feel like their purchase is justified.
 

teh_pwn

"Saturated fat causes heart disease as much as Brawndo is what plants crave."
The average weight of an American woman is 165lbs? Jesus christ.

Yeah, it's amazing. I'm 155 and I'm a 5'9" male. No wonder everyone thinks I'm "too thin".
 

Ra\/en

Member
Yeah, it's amazing. I'm 155 and I'm a 5'9" male. No wonder everyone things I'm "too thin".

You are perfectly healthy. I'm 5'11" and 162. My BMI is perfect, yet I know i'm on the thin side when compared to much of my age group.

As several people have said, the perception of what is "normal" and "correct" has changed in the last 20-30 years. People may be overweight and feel that they are normal. Especially when compared to some of the morbidly obese folk out there. Morbidly obese does not = "obese". Obese may look "normal"

Many of these obese individuals have metabolic syndrome. Also, it's not just diabetes you need to worry about. CVD, fatty liver, joint problems and cancer are all associated with obesity.

Ugh i get so depressed thinking about it sometimes. people have the right to be fat and eat whatever they want. But the obese people of today are going to really be suffering down the line.
 
ugh this is why we need a ron paul prez....im not skinny but im not fat (5 foot 7 inch 270 lbs) but ron paul would help get the country in shape..
 

Red

Member
I think people also have this notion that obese= morbidly obese. Like waddling, fupa, sweating while eating morbidly obese. They think since they don't look like that, they're not obese.
I know maybe five middle aged women who walk. All the rest waddle. Like penguins. They have hip and knee problems because of their weight, yet take no steps to fix themselves.

I understand the difficulty with losing weight, but I think there's an innate human repulsion toward fat people. I used to get weirded out and uncomfortable around cripples, the elderly, amputees, and sick people as well. Probably grasping at straws but I would toss out the possibility that this kind if repulsion is an evolutionary method of avoiding the weak. It might not be fair in the world today, but it's tough to get past.

I am not as bothered by fat people as I used to be, and I don't assume that they are a certain way because of their own failure. But I understand how others see them as self defeating.
 

Mekere

Member
I have always been told that a girl weight should be (height in cm -110) while a boy should be (height in cm -100). My weight here is considered as normal:

160cm for 50kg (actually oscillating between 49-51) 5''2 for 110lbs if I don't make mistakes with my conversion.

Is it the same in the US?
 

Alucrid

Banned
ugh this is why we need a ron paul prez....im not skinny but im not fat (5 foot 7 inch 270 lbs) but ron paul would help get the country in shape..

You're an inch shorter than I yet weigh double.


I have always been told that a girl weight should be (height in cm -110) while a boy should be (height in cm -100). My weight here is considered as normal:

160cm for 50kg (actually oscillating between 49-51) 5''2 for 110lbs if I don't make mistakes with my conversion.

Is it the same in the US?

There's no magical formula to determine what a healthy weight is.
 

LuffyZoro

Member
Yeah, it's amazing. I'm 155 and I'm a 5'9" male. No wonder everyone thinks I'm "too thin".

Same thing at 5'11" and 135.

ugh this is why we need a ron paul prez....im not skinny but im not fat (5 foot 7 inch 270 lbs) but ron paul would help get the country in shape..

P1qXI.png
 

Mekere

Member
There's no magical formula to determine what a healthy weight is.

You misunderstood me, I'm not saying this is a magic formula, I'm just saying that's what people (have learned to) expect to see, average expected weight for average people if you wish. I was just curious if there were similar expectations in others country, that's all.
 

SeanR1221

Member
That's kind of fat... I thought you didn't eat for days on end?

Yup. I'm 5'8 and weighed in at 179 this morning. I definitely have fat to lose, mostly belly fat.

My fiancé is 5'5-5'6 and 105 pounds. I hate when people say she's too thin.
 
The East Asian diet/lifestyle definitely works for maintaining a healthy weight. Barely any sugary or sweet foods, slower eating, and 6-8 small meals instead of 3 huge ones. That and there's very little "recreational eating." Eating is a more of a social experience than a race to see how much shit you can cram down your throat.

Have you seen an average Japanese businessman eat during lunch time? Nothing is slow about that.
 

eastmen

Banned
What we should honestly do is have gym fees paid by insurance companys and then have insurance companys pay a bonus to fat members who become healtheir .

I think esp in low income familys there might be a push to get healthier if their rates come down and they get a bonus for getting healthy.

I'm 6'4 - 6 months ago I was 325lbs . I'm not 300lbs . I'm hoping to get down to 290lbs by the end of june and 275lbs by my birthday in sept .
 
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