You know, I'm not even sure how we got off on this tangent. When I'm at the doctor, I do get defensive about weight issues. In this post, I was not being defensive-- I'm just telling the truth. You seem to have issues with this paragraph:
There are a lot of arguments about the dangers of obesity that rely on this fallacy. People assume that because there's some (but not as much as we're lead to believe by the popular media) correlation between increasing weight and increasing incidents of certain diseases and premature death that obesity causes these diseases and premature death. But when you factor out certain lifestyle elements, such as activity, consumption of fruit and vegetables, and smoking, the picture becomes more complicated. It's more likely that lack of activity and poor eating habits both contribute to obesity and to ill health, not that obesity causes ill health in and of itself, since people who are obese but who exercise regularly have virtually the same life expectancy as thinner, active people.
What part of that paragraph do you have a problem with? The fact that obese people who are active have better mortality rates than thin, sedentary people and about the same mortality rate as thin, active people? The fact that being at the high end of your "ideal" BMI or the low end of "overweight" is better for mortality than being on the low end of your so-called "ideal" BMI? The fact that the correlation between even very high levels of obesity (greater than 40) and most diseases is very weak?
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Date: 2007-02-07 09:07 pm (UTC)There are a lot of arguments about the dangers of obesity that rely on this fallacy. People assume that because there's some (but not as much as we're lead to believe by the popular media) correlation between increasing weight and increasing incidents of certain diseases and premature death that obesity causes these diseases and premature death. But when you factor out certain lifestyle elements, such as activity, consumption of fruit and vegetables, and smoking, the picture becomes more complicated. It's more likely that lack of activity and poor eating habits both contribute to obesity and to ill health, not that obesity causes ill health in and of itself, since people who are obese but who exercise regularly have virtually the same life expectancy as thinner, active people.
What part of that paragraph do you have a problem with? The fact that obese people who are active have better mortality rates than thin, sedentary people and about the same mortality rate as thin, active people? The fact that being at the high end of your "ideal" BMI or the low end of "overweight" is better for mortality than being on the low end of your so-called "ideal" BMI? The fact that the correlation between even very high levels of obesity (greater than 40) and most diseases is very weak?