"Americans Exercise More....Obesity Rates Still Climbing"
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Packerjohn wrote: »Carrying heavy bodyweight, whether muscle or fat, has been shown to be detrimental to health.
It puts a strain on your heart in either case.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say if we look at 2 6ft, 275 pound guys one is 15% BF and the other is 35% BF the guy with 15% is actually moving, getting his heart rate up, etc and most likely healthier.
Is his heart healthier than another guy that is 6ft, 200 pounds and 25% BF? Someplace the streams cross.
Unfortunately, this is not the case.
High bodyweight levels lower life expectancy. It doesn't matter if you are muscular or not.1 -
"My husband weighs 210 and is 5'9" and he's not obese."
This 5'9", 170lbs person who has done a little bit of training and has more than average amount of muscle thinks that's highly improbable.
There are guys in the NFL who are 5'6" and weigh 190 and have low bodyfat levels.
They are outliers but they exist.0 -
Obesity is merely a classification based on weight to height ratio. Nothing more. Being classified as obese doesn't necessarily mean you carry all of the health risks equally to others classified as obese.
There are many very fit people. When @sijomial writes that her husband is "not obese at 5'9, 210", I don't think her point is to argue the classification, because it's simply a number and you can't really do that. Technically the numbers say he is. I would doubt very highly, however, that if he's in good shape with a muscular build that he carries the health risk that the average obese person would. At least I think that's her point.
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High bodyweight levels lower life expectancy. It doesn't matter if you are muscular or not.
The first part of this is, for the most part, agreeable (if you don't consider the second part.
But I can't take that statement as a whole to be truth. Are you really saying that the life expectancy of a guy with 15% body fat, yet classified as obese, has the same life expectancy of someone with 35% body fat at the same weight? I'd like to see the case for that. I'm sure that you could come up with a study that correlates BMI as a whole....i.e. one that includes the entire body fat populations within each BMI percentage. But that does not say that being muscular doesn't matter.
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Yes, But there's multiple issues at hand.
You can't generally speaking outrun a bad diet. So there is a certain population that are fat and fit. I still fit into that category and other active posters have identified that they once fit into that category as well. I'm much less fat than 2 years ago. and somewhat less fit(due to recovering from injury)
But just as meaningful is that there's a great deal of misperception of what meaningful activity and exercise is. Doing 30 minutes of chest press, OHP, Squats, DLs, lunges, rows, etc in a slow meandering circuit with 2 lb hand weights will burn fewer calories than walking the 1.5-2 miles you could have walked in that time. But there are classes and DVDs stealing people's(mostly women) money. Telling them that this is what they need to do to tone their bodies.
My brain tells me there are other issues as well but they've escaped me.
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Mr_Healthy_Habits wrote: »I will say the amount of people on rascal scooters during my last visit to Disneyland was insane...
Literally an explosion of these things over the last several years...
The majority did not appear to even need them for any particular reason
And here I sit thinking I should've invested in scooters 10 years ago
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I think we can all agree on the "weight loss" happens in the "kitchen." And we can agree that people don't always exercise in a way that is productive, especially resulting in weight loss. I think that the original point, highlighting "Americans" is interesting. I can't compare to other countries but my observation about the US (where I live) is that we all want the quick fix, the easy way, and we want it now. We drive around the gym parking lot looking for the closest parking spot, we get our groceries delivered, we love restaurants where people do all the work and make it really tasty (ie. high in fat, calories and salt). We don't walk to do our errands. We hire people to clean our houses, walk our dogs and cut our grass. If we parked farther away, carried a backpack to the grocery store and walked there and back, ate at restaurants as a special treat, cleaned our own houses, walked our dogs and cut our own lawns, we wouldn't need to "work out" and we'd probably get to eat more calories! (I TOTALLY GET THAT THIS POSTS REEKS OF ECONOMIC PRIVILEGE BUT IT MAKES MY POINT) (AND I DO UNDERSTAND THAT PEOPLE OF LIMITED MEANS CAN ALSO BE OVERWEIGHT - THAT'S ANOTHER CONVERSATION!)6
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Tblackdogs wrote: »I think we can all agree on the "weight loss" happens in the "kitchen." And we can agree that people don't always exercise in a way that is productive, especially resulting in weight loss. I think that the original point, highlighting "Americans" is interesting. I can't compare to other countries but my observation about the US (where I live) is that we all want the quick fix, the easy way, and we want it now. We drive around the gym parking lot looking for the closest parking spot, we get our groceries delivered, we love restaurants where people do all the work and make it really tasty (ie. high in fat, calories and salt). We don't walk to do our errands. We hire people to clean our houses, walk our dogs and cut our grass. If we parked farther away, carried a backpack to the grocery store and walked there and back, ate at restaurants as a special treat, cleaned our own houses, walked our dogs and cut our own lawns, we wouldn't need to "work out" and we'd probably get to eat more calories! (I TOTALLY GET THAT THIS POSTS REEKS OF ECONOMIC PRIVILEGE BUT IT MAKES MY POINT) (AND I DO UNDERSTAND THAT PEOPLE OF LIMITED MEANS CAN ALSO BE OVERWEIGHT - THAT'S ANOTHER CONVERSATION!)
Those are good points.
In the original post I used "Americans" because it was the CDC, and although they didn't specify it, my assumption was that it referred to the US. The study was more, but my post was based on a 15 second "news" item on news radio on the way to work.
I believe the disconnect to be real though. I think people tend to think that exercise is the key. All of this is exacerbated by the diet and fitness industries, where if they were as straightforward with the truth as most of the knowledgeable veteran people here at MFP are, they would solve too many issues that would serve to prevent recurring revenue. The diet industry comes up with all sorts of ways to convince people that calorie counting is just too much trouble. The fitness industry shows shirtless fitness models using their stuff - but not necessarily the stuff that they used to achieve their model body and rarely, if ever, mention nutrition. When they do it's usually something that involves buying their supplements and using their meal plans (without reference to why the meal plans matter and how they work).
Getting people motivated to solve the problem is how they generate the most money. Giving enough complete information to actually solve the problem for people can be counterproductive.
I'm not saying that Bowflex and Beachbody and Planet Fitness and Six Pack Abs and all that are lying. But it certainly doesn't help them to give more than just some of the truth. Not saying those folks are all bad. But it's kind of like political stuff. Neither of the political parties here in the US really want to solve the hot button issues because they need their bases to be energized on those issues. Works the same way.6 -
The answer is SUGAR
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as in sugar is good? or sugar is the latest demon in a string of demonized foods?5
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I think there may be more purposeful exercise now than in the past but I don't think it counterbalances the reduction in daily movement that has happened as we've shifted to a more sedentary lifestyle. Nor can it counter the massive increase in daily calories available to us.
Which is what a bunch of other people have already said, but I just wanted to get in my $0.02 as well.6 -
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I think people need to be aware of both their real calorie intake and their real activity level and what is appropriate for their weight management goals. Tracking can help with that.
There are a lot of people who think if they just "eat healthy" they will lose weight just like there are many who think they just need to exercise more. Neither approach is going to be effective if the person is still taking in too many calories for what they are doing. A lot of people think you get fat eating 3 whole pizzas or gallons of ice cream daily but most people it is the steady overconsumption of a couple hundred calories per day. That might be their fancy cup of coffee or healthy smoothie.
This! There a book called Mindless Eating and it emphasizes the Mindless Margin, which is really just overeating by 200 - 300 calories/day and it really adds up over time.3 -
"My husband weighs 210 and is 5'9" and he's not obese."
This 5'9", 170lbs person who has done a little bit of training and has more than average amount of muscle thinks that's highly improbable.
There are guys in the NFL who are 5'6" and weigh 190 and have low bodyfat levels.
They are outliers but they exist.
Steroid users skew the numbers.2 -
deannalfisher wrote: »Tblackdogs wrote: »I am constantly amazed on this site by the amount of calories people "claim" to have burned by exercise. I'm sorry, but most people (especially older women) are not burning 1000 calories from an hour and half of exercise. I went on a 100 mile hike in New Mexico, and I didn't lose a pound, even when hiking 10 plus miles a day with a 45 pack on my back.
90 mins of running burns me about 1k calories. I don’t think it’s highly unlikely to burn 1k with 90 mins of exercise, dependent on exertion level of course. Now those who claim a 1k burn in 60 mins are pretty laughable. But 1k in 90 mins is not unfathomable.
what exercise is netting you 1000cal burn in 90min? because that is like 3.5hrs of cycling for me at 16mph
I can run 11.5-12 miles in 90 mins, that burns me about 1k calories. I’m 33 y/o, 5’1” ~110 lbs.
Ran 13.2 today in 2 hours. Steady effort, HR avg 75% max (for people who think that matters). 29, 5'7, 146, female.
Burned about 1200.
Right on, that’s a great run and sounds about right for calories burned. I get in 15-16 miles in 2 hours, and usually clock about 1300 or so calories burned.
That's awesome. Do you watch your heart rate during your runs?
I don’t. I’ve never used any of the hrm gadgets, but I’m curious now. My husband has an Apple Watch, maybe I’ll borrow that one of these days to check it out.
I couldn't imagine training without one! Make sure to update the watch to your stats (especially age). That'll give you accurate HR zones : )2 -
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According to sources I could find Marilyn Monroe was 5'6", and was 115-120 lbs in her younger days and 140 lbs in her older days. She was considered chubby (voluptuous or zaftig in polite circles), compared to the standards of beauty at the time. A woman with those stats today would be told she was getting too skinny. Heck, we here would caution a woman who was 5"6 115 that she was borderline underweight! Our perception of appropriate body size has for sure become skewed, and I think it leads to a lot of defensiveness about what a "healthy weight" really is.
As to the OP, I suspect self-reported data, calorie ignorance, and purposeful exercise not nearly making up for a sedentary lifestyle all confound the conclusion the CDC came too.7 -
candylilacs wrote: »In 1998, the BMI changed. https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4890841/
Now, your BMI was 30 or higher, you were considered obese. My husband weighs 210 and is 5'9" and he's not obese. I'm 5'7" and 272 lbs. and I can be considered MORBIDLY obese. I have no CPAP machine, no oxygen, and I don't even snore. I have no back problems (fingers crossed) with my petsitting job I get plenty of exercise (I'll do more focused exercise at the gym) and having a pitbull lunging and having to carry him away (90 lbs. of dog).
The shopping cart has been a little healthier lately, but I have Cheetos, potato chips, and chocolate cake (for my husband's birthday!).
Getting more exercise to me, I have a healthy part in my life. Even if I didn't have very healthy habits, I exercised. I do enough exercise and I will be considering what I eat. I know that I eat about 1500-1700 calories when I am exercising. I fight away my depression and even lingering effects of my stroke with my exercise.
You've received a lot of flak already. I hope you don't mind my saying so, but congratulations finding a way to combat depression after a stroke. I can't even imagine how challenging that is. Regular depression is hard enough, and having to potentially cope with impaired speech, movement, and even cognition, must make it that much harder when you wake up each day. I've known several people who have suffered strokes or other injuries resulting from brain damage (bells palsy, cerebral palsy), and it is incredibly challenging to emotionally move on when your pain is literally staring you in the face each morning. My heart goes out to you.
I hope you continue winning against depression and, if you find that you need help, seek that --be it medical, mental, whatever. Sometimes we all need a trusted authority to check our perceptions and actions, even those of us who *appear* healthiest.7 -
Mr_Healthy_Habits wrote: »I will say the amount of people on rascal scooters during my last visit to Disneyland was insane...
Literally an explosion of these things over the last several years...
The majority did not appear to even need them for any particular reason
We observed the same thing with wheelchairs years ago. We were leaving the park at closing time and there were may wheelchairs left in the Main St area which was blocks from the boats to the parking lot.
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