AggieDruggist89 said:

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1939 said:

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We are definitely a fat society but those numbers are typically over inflated because they use BMI as a measure which is not a good measure.

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Really??

We are fat because BMI is not a good measure?????

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It's not a great measure for certain groups like those who consistently lift weights, endurance athletes, elderly. It doesn't consider fat vs muscle. I'm 5'11' but according to the charts I should be 165 as an ideal weight. The lowest I got when running marathons was 175 with a 32 waist. I would look sickly if any lower. Now I'm 190 with with 34 waist but I do t think I could ever get back to 170s unless I acquired a tapeworm…But I'm looking into it anyway

The key here is can you comfortable button the pants at the belly button.

5'11, 167, 34"

1939 said:

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We are definitely a fat society but those numbers are typically over inflated because they use BMI as a measure which is not a good measure.

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True BMI (an accurate measure of % body fat by weight) is a good measure, however, the way BMI is most often determined is simply taking your height and weight and looking it up in a table of average BMI for a person of that ht & wt.. Does not take into consideration muscle mass vs fat mass, or bone mass for you "big boned" types - LOL.

However, It's pretty obvious that as a nation we have become very fat. It's certainly not too many overly muscular people shifting the curve.

The most concerning part to me is how many young people - teens and 20's - that are overweight.

The biggest difference between the diets of previous generations and the modern generations struggling with obesity is sugar intake.

in the 60's a stupid doctor claimed that fat was the biggest cause of heart disease. His study was flawed.

but companies used this to change the way they process food and preserve it and flavor it.

now sugar and salt are the most common preservatives and flavors.

sugar ****s with your body's metabolism, especially processed sugars. and trocks your body into storing those calories as fat.

low fat foods do nothing to help with weight. reducing carbs and sugars do alot.

Like others said, America has an obese problem but if this is based on BMI then I don't consider the numbers accurate. My BMI says I am essentially obese but I am far from it . I'm actually trying to gain weight/muscle to not look skinny.

5'9" roughly 162 and I do substantial amounts of heavy lifting and exercise about 1.25 hours a day, with about 30 minutes of that being intense cardio, the rest lifting or stretching or warmup. BMI is usually 23-24.

I am very muscle dense, but could still lose a little more body fat if I was fanatical enough.

Just look at pictures of normal people in the 20th century. There were a few overweight people, but most people weren't even close to the average body fat you see today. We simply eat for entertainment now, and high calorie foods are cheap and engineered to entice.

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Combine this with society pushing "body positivity" and not being able to call out extra pounds as the health risk they are and you get people who are convinced those who are a healthy weight are actually underweight, overweight people are average, obese is slightly over weight, and there is no reason for concern until you are eligible to be on My 600 Pound Life.

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I played golf with an older overweight guy and his two fat buddies. Twice during the round he referred to me as a "flat belly" to his friends. I was the outlier, the odd one. I'm 6'1", 185 lbs.

Well, and mom's don't cook any more.

Growing up, I don't ever remember going out to dinner. Mom always cooked, every day.

Try never going out to dinner....

Rydyn said:

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...but the percent "overweight" is dropping. That is a good thing, right?

Seems like that chart should be: "Overweight+, Obese+, and Severely Obese+".

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Overweight is dropping because those people are now obese, not because they go into shape.

Some of you people are ****ing ridiculous. BMI is one measurement. Only dumb**** trash tabloid media and smart asses like you treat it as some singular metric of health that has "flaws".

For most individuals, it's good enough on an individual basis to ask further questions about whether a person is in decent health or not. If you're some kind of star athlete, you have your answer. Same is true for a couch potato that is skinny because she barely eats between cigarettes and drinking binges. On a population level, it's a damn fine generalization because your borderlines are too few to matter that much. The sharp rise in the last 40 years is in obesity, and it's not because we all became chiseled gods.

So much of stupid American discourse, on all sides, is because of half wits popping off with their funfact outlier just to confuse an issue that's real.

1939 said:

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We are definitely a fat society but those numbers are typically over inflated because they use BMI as a measure which is not a good measure.

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BMI is a good solid measure for normal people who don't lift weights and only do cardio or live sedentary lives. For 99% of the population it works.

I'm an obvious exception to the rule because I am huge muscular wise but I recognize I'm not even remotely close to the average person and it's obvious to me just from looking around.

BigRobSA said:

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AggieDruggist89 said:

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Artorias said:

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1939 said:

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We are definitely a fat society but those numbers are typically over inflated because they use BMI as a measure which is not a good measure.

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This is true. According to BMI, a 6'5 250lb NFL linebacker with 10% body fat is "obese"

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And what % of the population is NFL LB?

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He's saying that just using BMI is a horrible method of determining anything. When I graduated HS I was 6'7" and 245. Excellent condition. BMI would say I was fat. It's an idiotic methodology.

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And he's absolutely wrong about that. BMI only fails when you have a significant amount of muscle mass from large amounts of resistance training. If you don't do any resistance training then it works, end of story. If you are fat according to BMI and you don't lift weights or have a manual labor job, or do any resistance training at all then you are fat.

24601 said:

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Like others have said, yes we are very fat but BMI has always been a joke for me personally. At 6'1", I'm in the "healthy" range at 140-185 lbs. If I weighed 140, I would be confined to a hospital bed. At 18 years old In high-school, I weighed 185 and was thin as a twig. Anything under 200 and I promise you I am in a healthy weight range, but bmi would still call me rather overweight.

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This is entire thread is full of exceptions from people who don't lift weights! It's amazing how we have people whose bodies violate biology.

I'm 240 lbs at 5'10" but I'm so far outside the norm that I'm a total outlier and would be thrown out from calculating a trendline. I lift all the time and my body fat is around 15%, measured and even I could stand to lose around 25 lbs to get leaner.

People post these things as a cope. Unless you lift weights, you are simply fat if you exceed your BMI.

BluHorseShu said:

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AggieDruggist89 said:

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1939 said:

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We are definitely a fat society but those numbers are typically over inflated because they use BMI as a measure which is not a good measure.

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Really??

We are fat because BMI is not a good measure?????

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It's not a great measure for certain groups like those who consistently lift weights, endurance athletes, elderly. It doesn't consider fat vs muscle. I'm 5'11' but according to the charts I should be 165 as an ideal weight. The lowest I got when running marathons was 175 with a 32 waist. I would look sickly if any lower. Now I'm 190 with with 34 waist but I do t think I could ever get back to 170s unless I acquired a tapeworm…But I'm looking into it anyway

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It works for endurance athletes because they don't have all that much muscle mass due to high cortisol. There are very few fat elderly people since the fats always die young.

cisgenderedAggie said:

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Some of you people are ****ing ridiculous. BMI is one measurement. Only dumb**** trash tabloid media and smart asses like you treat it as some singular metric of health that has "flaws".

For most individuals, it's good enough on an individual basis to ask further questions about whether a person is in decent health or not. If you're some kind of star athlete, you have your answer. Same is true for a couch potato that is skinny because she barely eats between cigarettes and drinking binges. On a population level, it's a damn fine generalization because your borderlines are too few to matter that much. The sharp rise in the last 40 years is in obesity, and it's not because we all became chiseled gods.

So much of stupid American discourse, on all sides, is because of half wits popping off with their funfact outlier just to confuse an issue that's real.

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Nah, this is just fats coping with their own obesity. Go look at pictures from the 1960s and 70s and wow what a shocker, the vast majority of the population would conform to BMI healthy norms.

AggieDruggist89 said:

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DrEvazanPhD said:

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"Body positivity"

No one should ever feel bad about themselves. And it's weird watching this historical shift...in the 21st century, it's largely poor people that are fat. Very strange.

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Body positivity my ass. If you're fat, you should feel shamed. And that's BMI of 25 and up.

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Quoted for truth.

Random crowd of adults in the 50's:

https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/daily-mirror-party-for-bill-haley-at-hammersmith-palais-de-danse-7th-picture-id1071366368?s=612x612

BAP Enthusiast said:

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The Weight Replacement. https://t.co/dlzUCwwcoC

— Marcel Dumas 🇭🇹🇩🇴 (@anarchyinblack) June 21, 2022

There is absolutely no way this ends well for the US. I just don't understand how these people can look at a mirror and think "this is fine" and continue to stuff their massive gullet with candy, sweets, chips, and other processed garbage while ordering takeout 3 times a day. It's going to eventually crush our health care system if these rates keep skyrocketing like this.

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Our healthcare system is already crushed.

gbaby23 said:

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Most people are far too stupid to make good decisions.

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This is why I think democracy is doomed to fail. You have politicians pandering and appealing to a bunch of fat mouth breathers.

MouthBQ98 said:

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Random crowd of adults in the 50's:

https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/daily-mirror-party-for-bill-haley-at-hammersmith-palais-de-danse-7th-picture-id1071366368?s=612x612

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That must be from an anorexia convention and they should be hospitalized.

/BMI naysayers..

BMI aside, I think we can all agree that fat people should not have the right to vote.

MouthBQ98 said:

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Random crowd of adults in the 50's:

https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/daily-mirror-party-for-bill-haley-at-hammersmith-palais-de-danse-7th-picture-id1071366368?s=612x612

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AggieDruggist89 said:

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1939 said:

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We are definitely a fat society but those numbers are typically over inflated because they use BMI as a measure which is not a good measure.

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Really??

We are fat because BMI is not a good measure?????

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Not what he said at all. He just said the numbers are inflated because BMI is the measure used to determine if a person is obese. There are people who would be labeled obese based on BMI that are obviously not anywhere near obese. My daughter is 5'4" and between 140 - 150 most of the time and looks smaller than she did at 110-115, due to the fact she now has muscle and low body fat. She is size small or extra small, in clothes sizes.

I would say that BMI is directionally accurate. A quick internet search shows that a primary alternative that is seems to be more accurate is a measure of your height and waist circumference.

2aggiesmom said:

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AggieDruggist89 said:

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1939 said:

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We are definitely a fat society but those numbers are typically over inflated because they use BMI as a measure which is not a good measure.

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Really??

We are fat because BMI is not a good measure?????

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Not what he said at all. He just said the numbers are inflated because BMI is the measure used to determine if a person is obese. There are people who would be labeled obese based on BMI that are obviously not anywhere near obese. My daughter is 5'4" and between 140 - 150 most of the time and looks smaller than she did at 110-115, due to the fact she now has muscle and low body fat. She is size small or extra small, in clothes sizes.

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so your daughter put on 30-35 pounds of muscles??

YouBet said:

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I would say that BMI is directionally accurate. A quick internet search shows that a primary alternative that is seems to be more accurate is a measure of your height and waist circumference.

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I've thrown out the BMI index for the GUT index, if your gut is over your belt or prevents you from seeing your toes, you are fat. Pretty dang accurate.

When. I was a kid, a hamburger was a treat and a rare event, now it is considered part of a diet.

Also, we didn't have fast foods on every corner. I keep my weight off most of my life by putting down the fork.


Try it, it really is all about intake.

Rapier108 said:

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If the WuFlu didn't teach people that being obese is a bad idea, nothing will.

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I bet dying will.

Also, agreed with people in this thread who say this is at least a little bit overblown because it's based on BMI. I am 6 feet tall, 190 pounds, and extremely fit. But I am overweight according to a BMI calculator.

As further evidence of how laughable BMI is, when I was putting my height and weight into the calculator, I accidentally put in 7 feet tall instead of 6 feet, and it said I was right in the middle of the normal range. 7 feet, 190 pounds is a normal height/weight ratio? Get the **** out of here.

PA24 said:

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When. I was a kid, a hamburger was a treat and a rare event, now it is considered part of a diet.

Also, we didn't have fast foods on every corner. I keep my weight off most of my life by putting down the fork.


Try it, it really is all about intake.

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My dad lost 30-40 pounds in his mid 60s (and has kept it off). He didnt go on any formal diet, really just two main planks.

1. an hour of power walking on the treadmill every day, rarely misses.

2. Didnt really change his diet or food intake very much except he doesn't eat bread at all and doesn't eat sweets. Eats the meat only out of burgers and sandwiches ect. Still has BBQ, fajitas, and other good meats when ever he wants.

BMI is always a fun discussion topic, because HAES crowd brings up how terrible it is for the reasons cited above, yet BMI effectively works for the vast, vast majority of the population that does minimal daily physical activity and have a high BMI simply because of dietary intake.