How many suicides are attributable to body dysmorphia or depression founded in body image issues?

#7: “Sounds like it’s time to come to terms with the fact that most “news” we’re fed these days is a load of horse puckey, which load we can certainly do without.”

For anyone who would like to sharpen their skills at carefully questioning and analyzing science and news reports, I recommend the book “News and Numbers” by Victor Cohn.

It’s easy to become cynical and dismiss all reports. However, some are quite useful, so as consumers it’s good for us to learn to decipher the difference.

Perhaps you think that a “negative impact on life expectancy” is the only important effect of Obesity, and if it is not proven then we all might as well “let the soul delight in fatness” but I argue that there is a quality of life issue at stake as well. I suppose that you can argue that not everyone cares if they can play pickup soccer, go out for a run, or even walk up a flight of stairs without being out of breath, and I suppose that is true. But most people would prefer to be able to do these things, whether they do them in reality or not. Optionality is always valuable.

With respect to the study I referred to, it was the one that found that muscle mass increased the mortality due to heart failure (I’m not sure if this was clear).

Finally, I couldn’t find the link just now, but when the California study came out I looked at the actual write up (as I too am always suspicious of the statistics in studies) but the methodology in this study actually looked surprisingly good.

taking this out of the arena of statistics, Frank, I would like to ask you personally, do you believe that it is possible to be obese (not just a little fat, or “obese” by the BMI by virtue of having too much muscle–but truly carrying a huge body % of fat) and at the same time healthy? (Define healthy as you like). I am interested to know…

Meanwhile, I don’t know about lipstick alone, but a really good makeup artist can do wonders…

If it is not causal, it is not causal and there is no use treating it causally. In which case one should quit talking about obesity and talk about good cardiovascular health. So yes, if people reduce their fat by exercising, that may be good for them, but it still is no excuse for confusing the benefits of exercise with those of less obesity. And yes, we do need statistics to tell us whether or not obesity is a mortality problem. It is not at all clear why fat, in and of itself, must be bad for life expectancy.

That said, obesity, all by itself, may well have a causal effect on health. I don’t know. But I have yet to see much evidence about how much death it actually causes (as opposed to how much death it is correlated to).

The study did not control for steroid use. I am doubtful it even controlled for exercise. The study in California probably uses the same problematic methodology and then puts it in dollar terms, perhaps to encourage (ill-advised) policy action. But putting lipstick on a pig won’t make it any prettier.

Well, maybe it will make it prettier, I don’t know. I’d have to see the pig.

To Ivan I would say, no–it is definitely not a health craze…very few people exercise to such an extend that they put on so much muscle that it is causing them to be in the obese category…and even if they do, such extreme muscle mass is actual detrimental to your health to some extent, simply by the extra strain carrying around such a lot of weight can put on your heart… (Although come to think of it, I wonder if they controlled for steroid use in that study???)

Finally, I want to mention a recent study done by some economists for the state of California about how much Obesity costs California each year, not just in terms of health care, but also in terms of lost productivity… the numbers were staggering…apparently about 22 billion in 2005…

From the news organizations’ point of view, they probably consider their reports to be highly accurate. If only they would learn to question the “facts” that they’re being fed.

Yet according to the BMI charts, I am not just obese, but “morbidly obese.” My ideal weight, according to BMI, is 187 – something I have not weighed since my freshman year in high school.

Is it possible the “obesity” epidemic is actually a health craze and more people have higher BMIs because they exercise?

One of the guys in my med school class has a BMI well into the range of dangerous… until one considers that he has single-digit body fat percentage and it one of the fittest men at the university. Muscle is heavier than fat, so his BMI soars. Not that he cares.

BMI has huge limitations, BF% is the way to look at the issue. Alas, it is harder to accurately measure, so it gets short shrift. Even the military, which attempts to use BF% to determine fitness standards, resorts to neck/waist ratios and other such less-accurate means of measurement.

Really, it’s % body fat you should be measuring.