What's new
Fantasy Football - Footballguys Forums

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Bill Maher on obesity (3 Viewers)

:Psychiatrist voice: It's OK to be wrong : /psychiatrist voice:.   :lol:   

Seriously, in our 24/7 on-duty all the time world the persistent stress levels are not what humans are built for - and I do think it's a modern phenomena.
Not everyone has control over their situation, but many in the typical FBG demo do. If health really is a priority then they have the ability to apply changes to their life to minimizing the stresses derived from what you described. We don't have to be available 24/7. We have (at least some) control over our availability. 

 
I understand, when I went to the doctor he is a little guy and he said I should weigh 185 tops.

Even though I weigh 212 I look much lighter. They need to take into account body fat % and muscle mass % for it to be more accurate.  Not just look at a chart.
Ideally, yes. But it’s expensive to perform accurate fat/muscle measurement, and unnecessary  for the vast majority of the population. Plus the required tests (DEXA or CT) involve radiation exposure.

BMI has proven itself as a valid surrogate for most people. And contrary to popular belief, it underestimates body fat more often than characterizes muscular people as obese.

And while it’s certainly possible he was small, have you considered the doctor is regular-sized, and you’re a big guy? At your height, 210 with abs is certainly an outlier.

 
"I'm not overweight, doc, I'm just dense."   :lol:
I wonder if any doctors hesitate to tell their female patients they could stand to lose some weight. I'm talking those in the overweight to mildly obese categories.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Captain Cranks said:
I wonder if any doctor's hesitate to tell their female patients they could stand to lose some weight. I'm talking those in the overweight to mildly obese categories.
Doctors aren’t supposed to date or marry their patients, so I can’t imagine them caring much about suggesting females lose weight.

 
And while there certainly are musclebound 6 foot guys who weight 210, that doesn’t describe most of the population, especially middle aged dudes in the FBG demographic. The upper end of a healthy weight for them is more like ~180. If you go by BMI, the range is 137-183.
6 foot and 137 is a problem, and not a good one.  

 
I’d have trouble respecting a doctor who didn’t lead a healthy lifestyle. They can still do their job well, of course, but really need to practice what they preach IMO.
I met with an allergist who was way overweight and upon testing positive for just about every environmental allergen she told me that I should avoid mountain biking for about 6 months out of the year due to potential pollen in the air and if I must go outside I should wear an N95 mask. I guess she is preaching what she is practicing, but it won’t work for me. 

 
That’s thin, for sure, but I’d wager the average 210 pound guy is more likely to have health problems.
You’re a doctor so I defer to your knowledge but when I graduated HS I was 6 foot 155 and I was a rail.  Another 20 lbs less then that I can’t fathom being healthy.  

 
And while there certainly are musclebound 6 foot guys who weight 210, that doesn’t describe most of the population, especially middle aged dudes in the FBG demographic. The upper end of a healthy weight for them is more like ~180. If you go by BMI, the range is 137-183.
A few years ago I was 6-0 205 and running 4-5 miles at an 8 minute pace. Not lifting much at that time though I had a little over the years. I would look like a concentration camp photo at 137. Some people just aren’t built to be light imo. I’m probably in denial 🙂

 
A few years ago I was 6-0 205 and running 4-5 miles at an 8 minute pace. Not lifting much at that time though I had a little over the years. I would look like a concentration camp photo at 137. Some people just aren’t built to be light imo. I’m probably in denial 🙂
No your point about someone’s frame or build is valid. My best friend and I are both 6 feet even.  I have a medium or average frame.  He’s got a much bigger frame (wrists are far thicker, shoulders are wider, bigger head etc etc). At 200lbs I look fine but could lose 10/15lbs (185ish is right for me), him at 200 looks unhealthy (almost like an alien, big head on a too skinny body). 220 is when he looks healthiest but he’s often 240.   Bottom line, frame matters.  

 
A few years ago I was 6-0 205 and running 4-5 miles at an 8 minute pace. Not lifting much at that time though I had a little over the years. I would look like a concentration camp photo at 137. Some people just aren’t built to be light imo. I’m probably in denial 🙂
Genetics are powerful stuff. I'm usually 180 lbs at 6'7".  Had friends in the military who could gain weight on half the calories.

 
You’re a doctor so I defer to your knowledge but when I graduated HS I was 6 foot 155 and I was a rail.  Another 20 lbs less then that I can’t fathom being healthy.  
Yeah, need to have chicken legs. I have a friend who is 6 foot 4 and a little under 160, same ballpark bmi

 
A few years ago I was 6-0 205 and running 4-5 miles at an 8 minute pace. Not lifting much at that time though I had a little over the years. I would look like a concentration camp photo at 137. Some people just aren’t built to be light imo. I’m probably in denial 🙂
137 is quite thin, no doubt. But 160-180 is possible with an athletic build at that height.

I used to run DEXA scans, which measure bone density, fat and muscle content. I was always amazed how puny the skeletons of bigger people looked in comparison to their extra tissue, which was mostly fat. As it turns out, we’re all built on roughly the same frame, with few exceptions.

 
I am 6'1" i weighed 135 in high school. I was crazy skinny. I was maybe 3% body fat. It isn't a great look, so maybe a problem for getting laid, but not for your health. 
Sure but I’d argue what’s OK for you at 16 isn’t necessarily OK for you at 36 or 46 or 56…

 
Agreed. Terrible.

Pryor: If somebody said to me, “Oh my gosh, you look great. You’ve lost some weight,” I would find myself thinking, “What did you think of me beforehand? Was I not acceptable?”

Yes, we found you gross and generally unattractive before - us telling you look great now is a gentle way of telling you that.
"We do tend to operate (as if) we can somehow look at people and, based on body size, determine whether they're healthy,"

If, by "we", she means disease, then yes.

 
"We do tend to operate (as if) we can somehow look at people and, based on body size, determine whether they're healthy,"

If, by "we", she means disease, then yes.
I agree with this generally.  Being a healthy weight does not necessarily mean you're healthy.  I know skinny people who are in absolutely terrible physical shape, and in my job I come across people who are healthy weights who have all kinds of issues with their lab work. 

 
I agree with this generally.  Being a healthy weight does not necessarily mean you're healthy.  I know skinny people who are in absolutely terrible physical shape, and in my job I come across people who are healthy weights who have all kinds of issues with their lab work. 
Yeah.  I agree. 

 
I agree with this generally.  Being a healthy weight does not necessarily mean you're healthy.  I know skinny people who are in absolutely terrible physical shape, and in my job I come across people who are healthy weights who have all kinds of issues with their lab work. 
But being an unhealthy weight, most of the time at least, means you are unhealthy. 

 
I bet if you asked FBG what constitutes a healthy diet, you’d get a bunch of different answers. While everybody knows fruits/veggies are good and heavily processed foods are bad, nutrition advice is all over the map for most everything else.


But "fruits and veggies are good while desserts and fried foods are bad" is pretty much all you need to know. Everything else is a minor, relatively inconsequential detail, IMO.

 
It's cheaper (due to subsidies), so there's more of it in everything.
Not sure I get the flow through here. They aren't going to make Twinkies sweeter because the sweetener is cheap. They aren't going to put it in butter just to fill out the weight. 

Sure they will use it instead of sugar, but how much healthier are items made with sugar compared to HFCS? 

 
Not sure I get the flow through here. They aren't going to make Twinkies sweeter because the sweetener is cheap. They aren't going to put it in butter just to fill out the weight. 

Sure they will use it instead of sugar, but how much healthier are items made with sugar compared to HFCS? 
Maybe more abundance of unhealthy choices with hfcs because of how cheap it is?

 
Not sure I get the flow through here. They aren't going to make Twinkies sweeter because the sweetener is cheap. They aren't going to put it in butter just to fill out the weight. 

Sure they will use it instead of sugar, but how much healthier are items made with sugar compared to HFCS? 


https://health.clevelandclinic.org/avoid-the-hidden-dangers-of-high-fructose-corn-syrup-video/

High fructose corn syrup has crept into more of our foods over the last few decades. Compared with regular sugar, it’s cheaper and sweeter, and is more quickly absorbed into your body. But eating too much high fructose corn syrup can lead to insulin resistance, obesity, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.

Fructose was initially thought to be a better choice for diabetics due to its low glycemic index. But only your liver cells can process fructose, and that’s where the problems begin. 

“Fructose goes straight to your liver and starts a fat production factory,” Dr. Hyman says. “It triggers the production of triglycerides and cholesterol.” He explains that it’s actually the sugar — not the fat — that causes the most trouble for your cholesterol. 

What’s even worse, Dr. Hyman notes, is high doses of fructose “punch little holes in your intestinal lining, causing what we call a leaky gut.” He explains that this allows foreign food proteins and bacterial proteins to enter into your bloodstream, which triggers inflammation, makes you gain weight and causes type 2 diabetes. 

Increases appetite, promotes obesity

Studies show that high fructose corn syrup increases your appetite and it promotes obesity more than regular sugar. “High fructose corn syrup also contributes to diabetes, inflammation, high triglycerides, and something we call non-alcoholic fatty liver disease,” says Dr. Hyman. He says it increases all the fat in the liver which now affects over 90 million Americans. 

“It can even cause fibrosis or what we call cirrhosis. In fact, sugar in our diet is now the major cause of liver failure and that makes sugar the leading cause of liver transplants,” says Dr. Hyman.

 
Hasn't it just replaced sugar?

I don't think they started making sweet hot dogs just because HFCS is cheap.
Sweeteners are not exceptions to the general rule that demand curves for goods will slope downward and to the right.

Consider two parallel universes. In the first universe, sugar is $4/lb and HFCS is $5/lb. (The HFCS may contain filler so that it has the same calories as sugar by weight.) In the second universe, corn is subsidized, so sugar is still $4/lb but HFCS is $3/lb.

You can expect two things to happen in the second universe compared to the first: (1) food manufacturers will substitute away from sugar in favor of HFCS at the margin, and (2) people will consume more total calories from sweeteners.

The second effect will happen in two ways. Bakers could make their products sweeter and more densely caloric, so people will consume more calories from added sweeteners even if their cupcake consumption remains constant. Or bakers could switch from sugar to HFCS without increasing the number of calories in each cupcake, but now that cupcakes are cheaper, people will eat more cupcakes on average. Both effects are likely to occur in combination.

The upshot: When people already consume too many calories from added sweeteners, you can expect subsidies for added sweeteners to have adverse health effects.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Sure but I’d argue what’s OK for you at 16 isn’t necessarily OK for you at 36 or 46 or 56…
What specifically are you concerned about?

FTR, one of my health goals is not to exceed my weight in college (so far, so good). While it’s not quite what I weighed at 16 (mostly due to a lot of wasted time in the gym), I don’t think setting the target lower would be deleterious to my health.

I guess you could argue maintaining muscle mass is important as we age, but that doesn’t really come into play until later in life.

 
What specifically are you concerned about?

FTR, one of my health goals is not to exceed my weight in college (so far, so good). While it’s not quite what I weighed at 16 (mostly due to a lot of wasted time in the gym), I don’t think setting the target lower would be deleterious to my health.

I guess you could argue maintaining muscle mass is important as we age, but that doesn’t really come into play until later in life.
To be clear I’m not talking about just being thin and generally healthy, I think that’s a universal truth as to thin being healthier then overweight. I’m talking specifically about the BMI index bottom tier of a 6 foot tall man weighing 137 pounds. That feels to me unhealthy and malnourished. That could lead to lots of problems with your immune system and your general overall health. Am I drawing these conclusions from years of medical experience? No. I’m just drawing it from the conclusion of being a skinny person for the majority of my youth and 20’s. And that’s 20lbs lighter then I ever was at that height.  

 
Last edited by a moderator:
But "fruits and veggies are good while desserts and fried foods are bad" is pretty much all you need to know. Everything else is a minor, relatively inconsequential detail, IMO.
Portion control, limiting alcohol intake and avoiding sugar sweetened beverages are also important. Appropriate salt and fiber intake are up there as well (for general health).

What’s not up there: demonizing an entire class of macronutrient, organic/grass fed/free range etc., and adding protein to everything. Not sure why we fixate on all the inconsequential stuff.

 
Portion control, limiting alcohol intake and avoiding sugar sweetened beverages are also important. Appropriate salt and fiber intake are up there as well (for general health).

What’s not up there: demonizing an entire class of macronutrient, organic/grass fed/free range etc., and adding protein to everything. Not sure why we fixate on all the inconsequential stuff.
Yes on portion control. I'd say that sugar-sweetened beverages morally count as dessert, and fiber is included in fruits and veggies. Good point on alcohol, to the extent that's considered a dietary issue.

Michael Pollan says: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

I say: "Eat more fruits and veggies. Limit fried foods and desserts. Don't be too weird about it."

Pollan's is better than mine, but either way, things aren't as complicated as many people make them out to be. Should grains be emphasized or minimized? I don't think it matters since they're neither essential nor harmful (in reasonable amounts, absent special intolerances or allergies). Same with meat. Same with whatever else is considered controversial that day. None of it is worth stressing out about if you get the basics right. (Avoiding entire food groups or macronutrients counts as being weird.) JMHO.

 
Last edited by a moderator:

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top