Is Being Fat Bad For You? - Maintenance Phase
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For nearly four decades, Americans have heard a simple story about health, longevity and obesity. This week, we learn it's a little more complicated. Thanks to Katherine Flegal, Paul Campos, Jeff Hunger and Jason Salemi for helping us research and fact-check this episode! Support us: Hear bonus episodes on Patreon Donate on PayPal Get Maintenance Phase T-shirts, stickers and more Links! Katherine Flegal’s “The obesity wars and the education of a researcher” Walter Willett's " Evidence does not support benefit of being overweight on mortality" Flegal’s 2005 paper Flegal’s 2013 article Willett’s 2016 meta-analysis The infamous 2004 CDC paper Fat: A Cultural History of Obesity Paul Campos's "The Obesity Myth" Walter Willett’s Food Fight            The obesity research that blew up Flawed methods and inappropriate conclusions for health policy on overweight and obesity: The Global BMI Mortality Collaboration meta-analysis Does Body Mass Index Adequately Convey a Patient’s Mortality Risk? The Weight of Medical Authority: The Making and Unmaking of Knowledge in the Obesity Epidemic Obesity: An Overblown Epidemic?  Commentary: On ‘public health aspects of weight control’ Obesity And Its Relation To Health And Disease Does Being Overweight Really Reduce Mortality? Individual and Aggregate Years-of-life-lost Associated With Overweight and Obesity

(very soy Harvard PMC voice) "Noooo, you can't say that obesity isn't evil!!! Your methodology must be faulty if it doesn't help me rationalize my anti-worker bourgeois moralism!"

We have the receipts of these Mad And On NPR eugenicists who are being honest about their Malthusian fascism: "We have no choice but to shame fatties or else our health system will be overloaded because people will become too fat".

Funny how that PMC pro-capitalist, anti-worker class betrayal of the 1990s/2000s is repeating during covid19. "You need to listen to experts, they want to help you!!!" Stop lying, demon. These treacherous grifters probably only fear mongered about obesity so they can get research funding, like how they wanted to be friends with Epstein

  • hexaflexagonbear [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I imagine it's a number of different factors at play. Some people might need to keep their bf% below a certain threshold in addition to just exercise, I believe fatty liver (a risk factor for liver disease) is determined by how the body distributes fat reserves. But as you're saying making society more pedestrian and bike friendly would probably do a lot to increase people's health outcomes.

    • marxisthayaca [he/him,they/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Definitely not an encouragement to work out 30 minutes and eat an entire pizza. But in reality, a lot of people's exercise levels (mine included) are sub-optimal primarily because of the way society is built around traveling really fast in a vehicle everywhere you go, instead of having walkable cities, dense urban areas, etc. So you need to actively save time to work out and by the point, you get home or feel motivated enough to do that, it is often too tiring or unappealing, or we are socially isolated. I don't like working out and doing calisthenics by myself. I remember playing flag football consistently for over a year before I got my girlfriend/now wife, and I stopped showing up.

      I think one advantage that the Healthy At Any Size movement provides is that you learn to love your body (and therefore care for it), give it the respect it deserves (including good diet and exercise). A lot of people that hate their bodies think of exercise as a punishment for being gluttons or think diets have to be extreme and that's no way to maintain a good system of living.