Causes of Death Linked To Weight 385
An anonymous reader writes to mention that while a couple of years ago researchers found that overweight people have a lower death rate than people with a normal weight, it may be more complicated than that. "Now, investigating further, they found out which diseases are more likely to lead to death in each weight group. Linking, for the first time, causes of death to specific weights, they report that overweight people have a lower death rate because they are much less likely to die from a grab bag of diseases that includes Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, infections and lung disease. And that lower risk is not counteracted by increased risks of dying from any other disease, including cancer, diabetes or heart disease."
Body Mass Index Not a Measure of Obesity (Score:5, Informative)
I lift weights, and I'm at the higher side of the BMI because I've got a bit more muscle mass. Yet, according to that study, I'd be "fat". And I'm not even particularly big. If you got a man who was lifting since their teens into middle age, he could easily have 20 - 40 pounds more muscle than the average joe.
It's wrong to teach BMI in schools. It's wrong to use it as a measure. If you want to know fat, break out the calipers. Anything less, is wrong, and anything based on it, is absurd.
The Times They Are A-Changin' ... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/mar2005/nia-16.htm
Besides, being underweight, I don't buy into it anyway.
CC.
Re:Body Mass Index Not a Measure of Obesity (Score:3, Informative)
(This is all approximate, of course, but so's the BMI in general. The bottom line is that a single BMI for all heights is the cleanest public health message, but it should be tempered when you're talking about individuals.)
Shorter people have the opposite problem. They might think they're well within the recommended range at BMI 25, but in fact they should be staying under BMI 22.5. This gives them a false sense of security.
BTW, I've seen a similiar message come into vogue recently. Men should have a waist under 40" (by some experts), or under 35" (by the guys who wrote "You on a Diet".) I understand and accept the general premise, but the guy at 5'7" is going to still be a little chubby while I (at 6'2") would be showing some serious ribs.
Re:The Times They Are A-Changin' ... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'm not... (Score:5, Informative)
Dunno if there is a correlation between home accidents and weight, though.
Re:Body Mass Index Not a Measure of Obesity (Score:1, Informative)
Shawn Alexander - Obese
Mike Alstott - Morbidly Obese
Marion Barber - Obese
Ray Lewis - Morbidly Obese
Ladanian Tomlinson - Obese
Lance Armstrong - Overweight
You may be "informative" but you're also wrong (Score:3, Informative)
Cars are EXTREMELY dangerous, and that we let all of us idiots drive such powerful death machines with such little regulation is frightening.
If you want some pseudomath - the insurance company premiums are directly related to their costs, at least if you assume a semicompetitive market. Housing insurance is annually lower than car insurance - even with extremely inexpensive car insurance - everywhere I've seen. And that's for cars costing substantially LESS than the house...
Re:Weight Loss is a Symptom, not a Cause (Score:3, Informative)
overweight vs obese vs underweight (Score:5, Informative)
1. underweight
2. at weight
3. overweight
4. obese
The article seems to indicate that the best categories to be in are 2 or 3, which shouldn't be that surprising. Being obese is horrible for your health, but there is a fairly wide range of weight around normal weight which remains healthy.
One thing that the article makes clear is that being *underweight* is pretty bad for you, and has much more problems associated with it than being overweight (but not obese). Again, this shouldn't be surprising. Being overweight just means that you are carrying around some excess fat, but is not an indication of malnutrition. Being underweight means that your body is nutrition deprived enough that it hasn't been able to build up a fat store. It also means, that since you don't have a significant fat store, your body starts to cannibalize muscle tissue whenever you go for a while without eating.
In general, good nutrition is the key thing. Either overeating *or* dieting when you don't need to will damage your body and lower your life span. Remember, also you need some fat on your body for doing things like cushioning your heart, and for when you go a while without eating anything nutritious, which many people do without realizing it.
Re:I'm not... (Score:3, Informative)
The overweight category is a bit sketchy. BMI is a really simple measurement and it's perfectly possible (even likely) for a fit person to get slotted into the overweight category simply due to muscle mass.
It's been shown that a better metric than BMI is waist to hip ratio. The beer belly is also where the more dangerous fat that builds up around internal organs tends to show up most clearly.