The bizarre phenomenon of "Skinny Fat" (ugh)
There are actually some good points being made in this clip from the Today show on how thin people with low BMIs may have some of the same risks that fat people are purported to have. Unfortunately nobody quite pulls it together enough to realize that it's the habits people exhibit instead of just what they look like that make them healthy or unhealthy.
The good: it's true, thin people are still at risk for health problems if they don't take care of themselves
The bad: nobody comes anywhere near mentioning that maybe fat in and of itself isn't a death sentence
Oh well. Baby steps.
UCLA Lectures Update | Surprise! Howard Stern is a giant jerk
Posted by CarrieP on March 9, 2010
Carrie,
Interesting clip. Thanks for posting it. I read an article somewhere recently about this study; I'm forgetting where. Ironically, the guy interviewing this woman had gastric bypass surgery a few years ago--just an aside. To me, this is just another chapter in the obesity nazis in the U.S. The message: Everyone's fat! Even if you're "thin," you're fat! Shame, shame, shame. Let's humiliate a new group. Let's bring them on TV and ask them, What are you going to do about your fat? We're going to bring you back on the show so that you can show you've been redeemed. It's no accident women were chosen. Regardless of what the so-called expert said, it iswell known that women have a higher fat to muscle ratio than men. It's biologically based.
Hurray! We have a new torture tool to seek out "thin" fatties--calipers that measure your folds of fat. The danger of these so-called experts is that by broadening their witch hunts to ever broader swaths of the population is backash--which might be a good thing. The average Joe or Jean will tire of this. Now, they can't as easily ridicule fat people because they might be one too!
It's not new. They've been measuring fat percentages for decades. Calipers are pretty imprecise; dunking people in water works better. And, I'm pretty sure that there are studies that go against the message in that clip. Muscle percentage doesn't necessarily have much of an effect on health. There's much stronger evidence that being at least moderately active, whatever your BMI or muscle percentage, cuts risks for heart disease and diabetes.
Another reason why the term "BMI" is useless!
I was thinking that too, moxie3. I just wish someone had come right out and said it. Too much to hope for, I suppose
I made it to the half way point and had to stop watching. Aside from the rediculous idea that one can be "skinny on the outside, obese on the inside" I couldn't handle the way they were talking. Their voice inflections reminded me of those over-the-top shopping channel salespeople, with their exaggerated emoting. Irritating as all heck.
Stop press: thin people can be unhealthy too! As you say Carrie I suppose it's too much to hope for them to extrapolate from this that not everyone who's 'obese' is automatically 'morbid' with it.
The revelation here is apparently that contrary to conventional wisdom you can't tell a damn thing about a person's health just from looking at them or putting them on the scales - which is what we've been saying all along, only with a slightly different emphasis and motivation.
"When people fear the government, there is tyranny; when government fears the people, there is liberty." - Thomas Jefferson
Sounds like a marketing campaign to scare thinner folk into buying some useless weight loss product! The more folks who are fat, the more customers. And both many studies and MSM articles come from PR departments, not scientists or journalists.
"Fat can be beautiful. Intolerance is ALWAYS ugly!"