cyberfish

On a side note, you being fat and healthy doesn't mean being fat has no effect on health.

Disease/illness contraction is a risk thing.

If you drunk drive, CHANCES are nothing bad will happen. Does that mean drunk driving isn't dangerous?

Mario F.

I dunno. I still think being a soldier is worse than being fat on what comes to life expectancy. But then, being fat is not so cool, is it? And being cool that's really what this is all about.

Monkey see, monkey do. Monkey see being fat is bad for your health on the TV, monkey wants to be thin.

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Originally Posted by brewbuck:
Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

abachler

Except with respect to infectious diseases like flu, higher weight gives you increased resistance and reduces the severity of the symptoms as well as the duration. Particularly in my family, weight has no apparent negative effect on health, as we are all heavier than average and yet our life expectancy is higher than the general population.

maxorator

I don't think that's only because your weight is above average. You could just have a healthier lifestyle or a better immune system than others.

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The duck is irrelevant to my point.

abachler

Which really dissociates weight with health, because most people could simply have unhealthy lifestyles that make them fat and thus prone to all the diseases associated with fat, but not actually caused by it. Lack of exercise is probably a bigger cause of heart disease than the excess weight that results. Or maybe the general population just has bad genes and a weak immune system.

cyberfish

Weight is only a factor of health, not the only factor.

I think the general consensus is that, ALL ELSE EQUAL, normal weight is healthier than overweight.

It's entirely possible that you will be even healthier if you are not overweight.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are very healthy smoking people, too. But all else equal, non-smoking is healthier.

Mario F.

All things equal, the air of the fields is healthier than the air of the cities. There's less traffic too, and less crime. Odds are (and it apparently seems so) country folk can live to very long ages on average. So, to anyone concened with their life expectancy I suggest you move to the country and stop being a demagogue.

I say, considering fat an health issue can only be debated superficially. Yes, it can be generally said fat people may have health issues in the long run. What cannot be said is how bad exactly is to be fat because I know quite a lot of large people living well beyond their 80s.

Similarly, I find it slightly annoying (even though I'm not fat) the call for arms against obesity when we kill ourselves a little more everyday on our cities due to smog, on our jobs due to stress and on our lives due to bad habits including (partying, alchool, etc). It's all a bunch of BS.

Let fat people be fat. They aren't doing anything against their health that many of us don't do tenfold. And they apparently live to long age too. Or is anyone going to try to convince me the majority of people over 80 are not fat?

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Originally Posted by brewbuck:
Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

cyberfish

I agree. Being fat is bad, qualitatively. No one really knows how bad. It's nearly impossible to find out with controlled experiments. There are too many variables, especially when being fat is usually a result of doing other unhealthy things (no exercise).

And then there is the definition of health, too. How do you define healthy? Is being alive the same as being healthy?

My grandmother (~70), for example, has been obese all her life without major problems. Except now, she can't walk. Her knees failed prematurely due to the weight. And since she can't walk around, she gets even more obese... The cause and effect here is quite apparent. Other things (heart problems for example), may not be as apparent, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's related.