Welcome to Debate Club! Please be aware that this is a space for respectful debate, and that your ideas will be challenged here. Please remember to critique the argument, not the author.

why do people think you can be healthy at every size?

245678

Replies

  • magnusthenerd
    magnusthenerd Posts: 1,207 Member
    wearefab wrote: »
    Brown fat prevails when you are fat but exercise a lot. Sumo wrestlers have brown fat.
    Visceral fat forms around organs and is dangerous. So the type of fat you have matters.

    I don't think brown fat amounts to much in humans, it generally strikes me as one of those "oooh, looks need in rodents - oops, not how primates work" kind of things.
    As far as sumo wrestlers, even they show health markers impacted by being obese compared to overweight less active people.
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/973605
  • vanityy99
    vanityy99 Posts: 2,583 Member
    wearefab wrote: »
    Brown fat prevails when you are fat but exercise a lot. Sumo wrestlers have brown fat.
    Visceral fat forms around organs and is dangerous. So the type of fat you have matters.

    I don’t get it...
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,899 Member
    edited February 2019
    Person seems to think fat won't form around organs if you exercise a lot, and unfortunately that is not true, genetics and how obese you are make a huge difference.
  • aokoye
    aokoye Posts: 3,495 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    But in order to get significantly overweight, it would be hard to eat right and be active enough. Most people do not get overweight by eating right and exercising regularly.

    If by "right," you mean eating the appropriate number of calories for your activity level, then you're right. But you can eat a healthful diet that simply has too many calories and you'll still gain weight. Being overweight doesn't mean one is eating the "wrong" things.

    And, just for completeness: Eating the "wrong" things won't necessarily make you fat.

    Example: My great nephew, a young man in his mid 20s, has literally the worst diet I've ever seen in an adult (who didn't have a medical reason to eat in a super-limited way). He eats the following: White spaghetti with shaker-can parmesan, cheese pizza, cheese bread, chocolate chip cookies, some other chocolates, I think some salty simple snack foods (chip type stuff) and maybe french fries, I think will drink pop . . . and I believe that's it (for sure, it's close). Really. No veggies (other than tomato sauce on pizza). No fruit. No meat.

    He's very slim, but I suspect not technically underweight (has to be close). He has a physical job, and a good energy level (I have no idea how), and so far seems healthy (I'm not expecting long-term good results).

    He's eaten like this since he was tiny. One Thanksgiving when he was middle-school age, his grandparents said they'd buy him the latest super-duper game console if he'd eat one bite of turkey. He couldn't do it. At holiday dinners with the family, he makes his own white spaghetti with parmesan shaker cheese, while the rest of us eat food.

    Healthy at every size? Hmmmm . . . . size isn't the whole story, either.

    I wish there was a sad button. Not in a judgmental way, but in a, "it sucks that someone's diet is so exceedingly limited for no apparent physiological reason" way and that it's been that way for more or less their entire life.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    aokoye wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    But in order to get significantly overweight, it would be hard to eat right and be active enough. Most people do not get overweight by eating right and exercising regularly.

    If by "right," you mean eating the appropriate number of calories for your activity level, then you're right. But you can eat a healthful diet that simply has too many calories and you'll still gain weight. Being overweight doesn't mean one is eating the "wrong" things.

    And, just for completeness: Eating the "wrong" things won't necessarily make you fat.

    Example: My great nephew, a young man in his mid 20s, has literally the worst diet I've ever seen in an adult (who didn't have a medical reason to eat in a super-limited way). He eats the following: White spaghetti with shaker-can parmesan, cheese pizza, cheese bread, chocolate chip cookies, some other chocolates, I think some salty simple snack foods (chip type stuff) and maybe french fries, I think will drink pop . . . and I believe that's it (for sure, it's close). Really. No veggies (other than tomato sauce on pizza). No fruit. No meat.

    He's very slim, but I suspect not technically underweight (has to be close). He has a physical job, and a good energy level (I have no idea how), and so far seems healthy (I'm not expecting long-term good results).

    He's eaten like this since he was tiny. One Thanksgiving when he was middle-school age, his grandparents said they'd buy him the latest super-duper game console if he'd eat one bite of turkey. He couldn't do it. At holiday dinners with the family, he makes his own white spaghetti with parmesan shaker cheese, while the rest of us eat food.

    Healthy at every size? Hmmmm . . . . size isn't the whole story, either.

    I wish there was a sad button. Not in a judgmental way, but in a, "it sucks that someone's diet is so exceedingly limited for no apparent physiological reason" way and that it's been that way for more or less their entire life.

    With a diet that limited and such an aversion to trying a relatively normal and non-offensive food (turkey), it sounds like a potential case of ARFID (avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder). It's like an ED, but instead of restricting calories people will restrict to a small group of "safe" foods.