Why do all women fail to realise that claiming being obese means they have a healthy body image is delusional?
by on Apr.29, 2009, under General
http://washingtontimes.com/article/20070807/NATION/108070050/1002
U.S. women losing girth control
Obesity has become more socially acceptable these days, according to their analysis of recent health and socioeconomic statistics. Coupled with feminine tastes for super-sized meals and other factors, the trend toward more gal girth has become more pronounced — and is here to stay, the researchers predict.
Currently, more than a third of women over 20 are obese. But self-image is changing, too. In 1994, the average women weighed 147 but wished she weighed 132. By 2002, the researchers found, she tipped the scales at 153 but longed to be 135.
MEDICALLY SPEAKING, MOST AGREE THAT THIS TREND IS A DANGEROUS ONE BECAUSE OF IT'S CONNECTION WITH DIABETES, CANCER AND OTHER DISEASES.
Do all women just really want to waste taxpayer money to pay for all their illnesses or are they really delusional enough to think that being a fattie is good because it means you have a healthy body image?
April 29th, 2009 on 6:01 pm
I shouldn't care really, but…
draecoirum,
"All adults: 133.6 million (66 percent)
Women: 65 million (61.6 percent)
Men: 68.3 million (70.5 percent)"
This claims to show the numbers of overweight people by sex. It does so by considering those people who have a BMI over 25. For reasons that SHOULD be obvious, this a very crappy way to compare. Men are naturally much bigger and heavier, so using the exact same scale to determine overweight/obesity levels is ridiculous. BMI is flawed anyway, but they should at least use a different scale for women, e.g. 22.5+
To illustrate the point:
A woman of average height, say 5ft 4" (1.6256m) who weighs 145lbs (65.77kg) is not considered overweight by this scale (BMI 24.89). Even to the most generous eyes, she would be clearly overweight.
It's just common sense. A 5ft 9" man should weigh between 145-165lbs, whereas a woman should weigh between 130-150lbs (assuming they're not rugby players or whatever). Someone else might set these weights at a different level, but I'm sure we can agree that assuming a 5ft 9" 190lb female is no more overweight than a 190lb male would be stupid.
The fact is, women ARE much more likely to be overweight or obese. It's very telling that even using an extremely unfair measurement, men only come out as slightly more overweight. Had draecoirum bothered to scroll down in her link she'd have noticed another interesting statistic (I'm sure she did, she just chose to ignore it):
"All adults: 63.6 million (31.4 percent)
Women: 35 million (33.2 percent)
Men: 28.6 million (29.5 percent)"
This statistic refers to people who are not just overweight, they are obese. Instead of 25+, the BMI level was set at 30+. So even using a massively unfair (to men) measurement, we can see that women are more likely to be obese than men.
I find it fascinating that draecoirum earned nine thumbs up and ZERO thumbs down for her amazingly shoddy answer. It just confirms what every intelligent observer of this section already knows: statistics that are favorable/convenient are accepted with open arms. But, show an unfavorable statistic and everyone immediately becomes an expert in pointing out flaws or bias.
Laugh my f*cking a*s off.
wendy, as the link draecoirum provided explains: "BMI is calculated by dividing a person’s weight in kilograms by height in meters squared. The mathematical formula is “weight (kg)/height (m²).” " After which, parameters must be set for what is (subjectively) considered "underweight" or "overweight." I have a health book that considers 18.5-22.5 to be the healthy weight for women, and 20 to 25 the healthy weight for men. That is an example of the parameters being adjusted to take account of sexual dimorphism. Unfortunately, the "male" parameters (20 to 25 or 18.5 to 25) are usually used as the default range by other books/studies/newspapers that is supposed to apply to all adults. draecoirum's article uses NHANES data. Its use of BMI: "[f]or adults 20 years old and older, BMI is interpreted using standard weight status categories that are the same for all ages and for both men and women. For children and teens, on the other hand, the interpretation of BMI is both age- and sex-specific.
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/bmi/adult_BMI/about_adult_BMI.htm
And again: "BMI is a measure that adjusts bodyweight for height. It is calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared. Overweight for children and adolescents is defined as BMI at or above the sex-and age-specific 95th percentile BMI cut points from the 2000 CDC Growth Charts. Healthy weight for adults is defined as a BMI of 18.5 to less than 25; overweight, as greater than or equal to a BMI of 25; and obesity, as greater than or equal to a BMI of 30."
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/datawh/nchsdefs/bmi.htm
So it is only in the case of children that a percentile (0.95) is used. This shown in the NHANES report:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus04trend.pdf#069
I hope that works, if not, it was supposed to take you to p179 of 427. It shows the footnotes to "Table 70: Overweight children and adolescents…" You'll notice that the "NOTES" footnote clearly shows that the data for children IS age-specific and sex-specific. This doesn't apply to adult BMI data on the previous pages. I would have preferred to simply link solely to the actual report but it doesn't neatly explain it all, so including the above definitions, though cumbersome, was necessary.
The shorter version is this (I know you'd be less likely to accept this in itself): see the BMI calculator tools provided and note the difference between the one for "Child and Teen"
http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/dnpabmi/Calculator.aspx
(it asks for sex) and the one for adults (it doesn't ask for sex)
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/bmi/adult_BMI/english_bmi_calculator/bmi_calculator.htm
This is why the data regarding overweight/obesity levels by sex is so fundamentally flawed. If I was "mistaken" about anything it was to say, as a fact, that more women are overweight (especially obese) when I know I can't prove it. Looking at the data, I'm convinced that this is true but saying "this is true because it just seems to be" is hardly admissable. Of course, it could be provable but one would need access to the raw data and it would also require agreed upon parameters for what constitutes a healthy weight for each sex. But this is moot.