The Average American Man's Body
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
Most people are going to put Todd at "a bit over weight", but not "near obese". Add a few kilos to Todd to tip him into obesity, and most people are not going to see much difference.
Give people a Todd image of BMI > 35, with no physical activity, and still most people aren't going to call that Todd obese. And if it's a woman the discussion suddenly becomes polarised with accusations of "fat shaming" and "healthism" and "nanny state" and "causing eating disorders". Very obese women are called "curvy" or "voluptuous". Any attempt to discuss the health effects of over weight are dismissed as a fascistic attempt to control other people.
There are so many weird ideas around obesity - "it's not sugar, it's high fructose corn syrup! We weren't overweight until HFCS!". Maybe HFCS is worse than regular sugar, but we also didn't use to drink 64 fluid ounces of 10% sugar syrup. (http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/01/the-7-11-dou...)
You're right, there are many weird ideas around obesity. They start with many weird ideas about food in general.
Apparently wealth and the culture of abundance are not the only factors affecting obesity.
I see the average getting fatter and therefore that makes me more attractive because I am tall and lean.
Obviously I'm not thinking long term about societies healthcare costs. But right now I'm feeling pretty smug.
The truth is, people need a wake up call. Being overweight gets way too much not only protection, but positive reinforcement. It's a tricky one to solve - you don't want overweight people to hate themselves or suffer, but at the same time you need the nation as a whole to recognize this as a dangerous issue and address it.
It might not be a precise measure for some individuals (athletic, heavy muscled males) but what percentage are those in the context of a whole country ?
As an average/indicator over a large sample is perfectly acceptable, in my opinion.
Most people are not athletes. Most people do very little exercise. When using BMI for an individual you ask them if they do any exercise, but for populations it's fine.
Some groups of athletes list overweight because muscle is very dense - BMI doesn't distinguish between muscle and fat.
However, this does not mean that BMI is useless even here - overweight athletes often suffer similar medical conditions as overweight people generally.
I'm from the Netherlands myself. I don't like to dine out, because usually you get a too small amount of fresh produce.
It could be that Dutchies get more exercise on average, because we like to ride bikes to work, etc.
We all could do with the advise from dr. Fuhrman from the USA (www.drfuhrman.com): eat significantly more fruit, vegetables and beans and less processed foods. Increase the nutrient density of your diets: instant weight loss and health gain. People might eat a little healthier in The Netherlands than the USA, but honestly all Western countries could improve a lot on this.
This article makes the mistake that greater body length equals healthier lifespan. There is no positive correlation, maybe even a negative correlation, because longer people have more body cells. Longer people often develop back problems.