Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

Categories


All categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Add to Google

Subscribe with Bloglines

Friday, August 21. 2009

What "obesity crisis"?

Obesity is probably decreasing in the USA. What changed (in 1998) was to change the definition of obesity down to 30 lbs. overweight, thus adding millions to the "obese" column.


There's no way somebody 30 lbs overweight (by whatever standard is used) is what people consider obese. 30 lbs overweight is "plump," pudgy," or, as they used to say, "sleek" or "prosperous-looking." In women, "matronly."


In fact, being 30 lbs overweight has no ill medical effects at all. The aesthetics of it are, of course, highly subjective.

Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss in Medical at 12:48 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

Dr. Bliss ... Thank you for this introduction of good sense into the latest non-emergency emergency. In my youth, I was told by a very good doctor that sometimes as one grows older, it is better to be a little too plump than a little too thin, because when one is attacked by severe, if temporary illnesses, one has a little reserve to help one recover.

Of course, one can take this too far.

Marianne
#1 Marianne Matthews on 2009-08-21 12:57 (Reply)
Oh, it is even worse than that. The level was re-deined to meet WHO {UN) standards - despite our own government agency's findings. Which was, and continues to be, that BMI (*SPIT!* An asinine measure when applied to individuals anyway, as warned against by the guy who developed it) of 25-32 or thereabouts, currently largely defined as "overweight" to "obese," correlated to longer life and overall better health.

The Japanese also changed their standard to conform with WHO - but rapidly (well, for a government) went back to the standards recommended by their own doctors...
#2 John A on 2009-08-21 14:24 (Reply)
I remember a while back that Arnold Schwarzenegger, before the governor years, was judged to be obese at 6'2", 257lbs. Stupid BMI...
#3 Indigo Red (Link) on 2009-08-21 18:25 (Reply)
The obesity crisis, to my way of thinking, is when you have trouble buttoning the top button before Thanksgiving dinner.
#4 Jim on 2009-08-22 00:58 (Reply)
Obesity is one of the chief causes behind a lot of health related complications threatening us and making our lives all the more complex. We are all busy in our daily schedules and we can hardly look at any symptoms of obesity and address issues which are typically related to our health or that of the community.
#4.1 Sandra (Link) on 2010-10-28 03:02 (Reply)

Add Comment
(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)

By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email
addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications.

Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u],
[url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here.

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

BBCode format allowed
 
 
A Chris Southern Consulting website.