JAMA vs. CDC (Or why being a fat fuck might not be so bad)

[midlifeaspie]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/opinion/our-imaginary-weight-problem.html?_r=4&

Our Absurd Fear of Fat
By PAUL CAMPOS
Published: January 2, 2013

ACCORDING to the United States government, nearly 7 out of 10 American adults weigh too much. (In 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention categorized 74 percent of men and 65 percent of women as either overweight or obese.)

But a new meta-analysis of the relationship between weight and mortality risk, involving nearly three million subjects from more than a dozen countries, illustrates just how exaggerated and unscientific that claim is.

The meta-analysis, published this week in The Journal of the American Medical Association, reviewed data from nearly a hundred large epidemiological studies to determine the correlation between body mass and mortality risk. The results ought to stun anyone who assumes the definition of “normal” or “healthy” weight used by our public health authorities is actually supported by the medical literature.

The study, by Katherine M. Flegal and her associates at the C.D.C. and the National Institutes of Health, found that all adults categorized as overweight and most of those categorized as obese have a lower mortality risk than so-called normal-weight individuals. If the government were to redefine normal weight as one that doesn’t increase the risk of death, then about 130 million of the 165 million American adults currently categorized as overweight and obese would be re-categorized as normal weight instead.

To put some flesh on these statistical bones, the study found a 6 percent decrease in mortality risk among people classified as overweight and a 5 percent decrease in people classified as Grade 1 obese, the lowest level (most of the obese fall in this category). This means that average-height women — 5 feet 4 inches — who weigh between 108 and 145 pounds have a higher mortality risk than average-height women who weigh between 146 and 203 pounds. For average-height men — 5 feet 10 inches — those who weigh between 129 and 174 pounds have a higher mortality risk than those who weigh between 175 and 243 pounds.

Now, if we were to employ the logic of our public health authorities, who treat any correlation between weight and increased mortality risk as a good reason to encourage people to try to modify their weight, we ought to be telling the 75 million American adults currently occupying the government’s “healthy weight” category to put on some pounds, so they can move into the lower risk, higher-weight categories.

In reality, of course, it would be nonsensical to tell so-called normal-weight people to try to become heavier to lower their mortality risk. Such advice would ignore the fact that tiny variations in relative risk in observational studies provide no scientific basis for concluding either that those variations are causally related to the variable in question or that this risk would change if the variable were altered.

This is because observational studies merely record statistical correlations: we don’t know to what extent, if any, the slight decrease in mortality risk observed among people defined as overweight or moderately obese is caused by higher weight or by other factors. Similarly, we don’t know whether the small increase in mortality risk observed among very obese people is caused by their weight or by any number of other factors, including lower socioeconomic status, dieting and the weight cycling that accompanies it, social discrimination and stigma, or stress.

In other words, there is no reason to believe that the trivial variations in mortality risk observed across an enormous weight range actually have anything to do with weight or that intentional weight gain or loss would affect that risk in a predictable way.

How did we get into this absurd situation? That is a long and complex story. Over the past century, Americans have become increasingly obsessed with the supposed desirability of thinness, as thinness has become both a marker for upper-class status and a reflection of beauty ideals that bring a kind of privilege.

In addition, baselessly categorizing at least 130 million Americans — and hundreds of millions in the rest of the world — as people in need of “treatment” for their “condition” serves the economic interests of, among others, the multibillion-dollar weight-loss industry and large pharmaceutical companies, which have invested a great deal of money in winning the good will of those who will determine the regulatory fate of the next generation of diet drugs.

Anyone familiar with history will not be surprised to learn that “facts” have been enlisted before to confirm the legitimacy of a cultural obsession and to advance the economic interests of those who profit from that obsession.

Don’t expect those who have made their careers on fomenting panic to understand that our current definition of “normal weight” makes absolutely no sense.

Paul Campos is a professor of law at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the author of “The Obesity Myth: Why America’s Obsession With Weight Is Hazardous to Your Health.”

The study:

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1555137&atab=7

[Icequeen]

I don't own a scale, won't buy one.
I think your ideal weight is the weight you feel best at.

According to their scale my "ideal healthy weight is 118 pounds"...my "recommended" weight range is between 105 and 132 pounds.

I range 125 to 135, depending on how my life is going, when I'm stressed  or sick I loose weight, if I'm content and happy I gain a few... I've been at "my ideal" of 118 and even been at 110...I might have looked great to a few people, but I felt like a piece of shit.

Both my parents where never overweight, were active, didn't smoke, didn't do drugs, and didn't drink to excess. Didn't help much...bad genetics still won.

[TA]

It is your right to weigh what ever you choose.

Now to send this to all the dietitian fucks that ruin school/government food.

[bodie]

I have been a skinny ribs. 7 stone.  I looked ill.  My itty bitty titties turned inverted, i think. 


I feel much better now i have put a bit of timber on.  I dunno what my weight is at the moment, probably 8 - 9 stone. 

I don't think you should pay too much attention to an ideal weight set by anyone other than yourself.

[earthboundmisfit]

According to the BMI scale, I am borderline obese.

[Parts]

I would be considered obese also, kinda odd I spent yesterday climbing up and down ladders working on a house or that in a few minutes I am going to work under some houses damaged in the hurricane,  ya wouldn't think an obese person could do such a thing.  How about the fact last doctors visit my cholesterol was great as was my blood sugar, and blood pressure. 

["couldbecousin"]

  I am obese too and recently tested my blood sugar in the morning using a work friend's monitor (fresh needle of
  course) and she said my sugar was a bit high for morning.  I am working on becoming less obese and less full of sugar.

[midlifeaspie]

  I am obese too and recently tested my blood sugar in the morning using a work friend's monitor (fresh needle of
  course) and she said my sugar was a bit high for morning.  I am working on becoming less obese and less full of sugar.

CBC is just too sweet 

[Icequeen]

I need to eliminate the source(s) of my stress so that my blood pressure will go down.

 

*need more pins*

["couldbecousin"]

  I am obese too and recently tested my blood sugar in the morning using a work friend's monitor (fresh needle of
  course) and she said my sugar was a bit high for morning.  I am working on becoming less obese and less full of sugar.

CBC is just too sweet 

         I need to become a bit more alpha in my dietary habits!

["couldbecousin"]

I need to eliminate the source(s) of my stress so that my blood pressure will go down.

 

*need more pins*

  *collects all the assorted pins and prickly things from household hoard and sends to Icequeen* 

[Calavera]

According to the BMI scale, I am borderline obese.

I would be considered that as well even though my body doesn't show it physically. Strange how it goes.

[earthboundmisfit]

The height/weight scales are ridiculous. To be barely within the normal range I'd have to weigh 174 pounds. Even if I had zero fat on me, I'd have to lop off an arm to get down to that weight.

["couldbecousin"]

The height/weight scales are ridiculous. To be barely within the normal range I'd have to weigh 174 pounds. Even if I had zero fat on me, I'd have to lop off an arm to get down to that weight.

  Muscle mass needs to be taken into consideration!

[skyblue1]

my BMI is  20.7 at 5'9" and 140 lbs