Among the claims made in the book is the following: People dubbed “overweight” by current standards, up to a certain weight threshold, are actually healthier than those dubbed of “normal” weight.
I brief search through Google revealed no useful links to criticisms of the book’s argument. Everything I can find about it is glowingly positive–but perhaps that just means it’s only been read by people predisposed to accept its message.
Has anyone here read this book with a critical eye or seen critical reviews of it? Is the book’s argument a good one, a bad one, or somewhere in between?
Haven’t read the book, can’t speak to it. Conventional wisdom is that you can be thin and attractive but still be out of shape (the condition is called normal-weight obesity and has to do with how much lean muscle vs fat% you have). Out of breath walking up a couple staircases, can’t lift heavy shit, but still considered conventionally thin and attractive. You can do some casual research of your own on the topic if you’re curious.
Not “any size” can be healthy of course. That’s clearly hyperbolic. No 800 pound person is going to be healthy, and no 80 pound adult is going to be healthy (barring dwarfism). But there are bodybuilders who weigh 300 pounds who are pretty healthy. There are people who weigh 200+ pounds, and due to their height and lean muscle percentage are healthier than someone half that. That’s probably where the book title comes from.
Beat me to it. I’ll summarize, though, since that sort of abstract can be hard to read without practice.
Basically if you take a big mess o’ medical statistics, you can determine the relationship between BMI and morbidity (risk of disease) and mortality (risk of death). By this analysis, the “optimum” BMI is between 22 and 25, which is the heavier end of “normal”. I.e. people who might want to lose 20 pounds to reach a cosmetic ideal really don’t have to worry about their health. That range also includes the fit but heavy and muscular. In these analyses, people with low BMI have increased morbidity and mortality mostly because (on average) they are skinny and unhealthy from smoking or drug use. High BMI though absolutely causes all sorts of health problems.
Still, I’ll buy that someone who is 50 lbs overweight but very physically active while maintaining a large appetite is probably healthier than someone at “normal” weight who is completely sedentary while eating lots of junk food. However that’s not true for the vast majority of overweight people. You say this and a lot of obese people are going to rationalize their 5 minute parking lot walks as enough exercise to count themselves as physically active…
Yep. I used to be friends with a woman who blogs in the “Fat Acceptance” community, and that’s essentially what she says. She can be 300 or higher, and is still beautiful and pretty healthy.
Total crap, at least on the healthy aspects. She is not active, or at least wasn’t when I knew her. But she’s totally immersed now in the “if you diet, you actually hate yourself and are mentally unhealthy” mindset. It’s sad, in a way, as she’s pretty sharp.
This is harsh, but I think people like that who are into this “fat acceptance” thing are just using it as an excuse to stay fat.
That said, if you are fat and are perfectly content and have no desire to lose weight for whatever reason, well great. But don’t kid yourself into thinking you are healthy or that dieters “hate themselves.”
Wilt Chamberlain played at about 275 and I once worked out his BMI at around 37, making him morbidly obese. Of course he wasn’t, not while he was playing. Of course, he didn’t live long but I have no idea what he died of or whether he just went to pot after retiring.
Not quite 37. From the Wikipedia article he was 7’1", and played at 300lbs at one time. That’s a BMI of 29.2 which is in the “overweight” category. That’s about the same as somebody who is 5’9" and 200lbs.
BMI is very useful as a population statistic. In that on average a higher BMI is a risk factor for lots of health related problems. In any individual case BMI may or may not be valid. For every “but muscle weighs more than fat” objection, you probably have 10 “but it ain’t muscle making you 250” replies.
Re: the OP. I’m not familiar with that book, but there is clearly more to health than BMI. The recent sitting is dangerous stuff for example. I can completely accept that an active 28 BMI is healthier than a sedentary 23. At some point though the detrimental effects of the weight are going to counterbalance any activity level. A BMI of 37 (5’9", 250lbs) is probably going to have health consequences, regardless of activity level (ignoring some hypothetical muscle super athlete).
Remember of course that many other factors go into morbidity. A family history of heart disease, overweight, sedentary? You don’t have to be a doctor to know that’s a bad combination. Luck of the draw good genes with a low susceptibility to heart disease, diabetes, etc. might make carrying around an extra 50lbs not a big deal. Unfortunately our understanding of genetics is not to the point to be able to say who is in that category.
Then too, though, all else being equal (which it isn’t), a person who’s physically active is generally going to be in better shape (lower weight, lower BMI, whatever) than a more sedentary person, just by virtue of the physical activity itself. It’s not necessarily that the high BMI itself causes the health problems; to at least some extent, it’s just another effect of the same cause (poor diet and/or insufficient exercise).
