More on the discussion of obesity, fat and health at Amptoons…
Hardly taking off the excess is it? Seriously, almost every other statistic I could find showed that most participants either didnt lose weight or actually gained weight. Some sources said that 95-98% of diets fail.
If you are using the term “diet” to mean a fad diet or sudden, temporary change in eating habits then yes, they fail with startling regularity. However many scientifically controlled clinical trials show a decrease in body fat, BMI, measurements and so on when one makes long term alterations to diet and alters the exercise regimen. Now obviously those will “fail” when the person goes back to their old habits… but that has nothing to do with it being impossible.
Impossible would be someone who showed no change in their body fat and other indicators despite significant changes in diet and activity. Those people are statistically rare as far as I can tell from my research.
Certainly nothing that would warrent the way some people treat obesity as if it were a terminal disease.
Well, some people who have an axe to grind will always take statistics and blow them way out of proportion. We see it in many issues as activism and tempers run high. NO issue that I know of doesn’t have people on every side misusing statistics to try and make a mountain out of a comparative molehill.
Being fat is a vastly exaggerated risk factor at most. At least, its a purely mythical one.
I’ll assume those are inverted because the statement literally doesn’t make sense the way it is written.
The issue is, what do you mean by “fat”? If your talking 10-40lbs then sure. If your talking about 200lbs then the correlation is much, much clearer. The thing is that being “fat” isn’t one thing… it is a term that refers to a huge range of weight.
Even more alarming is the fact that the crusade is without a viable solution. Losing weight isn’t “hard”. It is functionally impossible for the overwhelming majority of fat people.
I will be happy for any pointers to the data for this. That isn’t a “challenge” in any way. You certainly don’t have to provide a reference if you don’t want. As an offering from my side there are lots of good studies and papers published on the topic at the National Library of Medicine/National Institutes of Health website examining many aspects of the problem.
Of course any study is open to debate. Not only because the issue is complex (defining “health risk” to start is more complicated than it seems when multiple people need to agree). because the issue is so incredibly subjective. Unless you were going to lock people up like prisoners and drill them as such you can’t force compliance with a study. Also there is the issue of lifestyle to consider. Someone who is basically sedentary and obese will not really be at a huge risk as long as they continue to remain basically sedentary. If you put their body under stress (in a natural disaster for instance) they would be much more likely to suffer a cardiac event (as an example).
As a matter of practical reality though I see counter evidence each and every day of my life in myself and a fair number of those around me. At my Dojo there are 65 adults or so, of those about 40 of them are controlling their weight nicely with diet and activity. I say controlling because almost all of us carried noticeably more body fat when we started and wanted to reduce it. The others either simply tend to fitness and as such didn’t have any extra or have chosen not to alter eating habits that will clearly keep the weight on. Their choice and as long as their fitness level isn’t a risk for others it isn’t an issue. That’s not including all those I see at the gym who are doing it, nor all those who are in the extended fitness community who are doing it.
Now none of that speaks to a statistical issue because the sample is self selected. By definition the people you meet in someplace like a gym or a martial arts program are more interested int heir physical abilities than others. In general it seems that the truth is what our intuition tells us in this regard… those who are willing to make it a priority can succeed in controlling their weight, and those who are or cannot due to economic factors for instance not will not succeed.
It makes perfect evolutionary sense that how our body functions will change as a result of dietary intake and activity. These factors are easily observable in animals and there is absolutely no reason to imagine that humans are somehow biologically immune to this.
We need to demand that the medical establishment actually treat fat people instead of throwin their hands up and saying weight loss is always the only treatment for anything wrong with fat people.
I see no such effect in the medical community. Again, personal experience is my guide here. I have many friends who are overweight and a few who are obese. With the exception of a clear case of diet induced diabetes, another case of serious dietary induced coronary risk and one who had sever back pain due to a large and sudden weight gain none of them have had their health concerns dismissed or attributed to their weight when seeing a physician.
Now, my experience doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened to others… but it does mean that the phenomena you described is not universal.