There’s also a big difference between “life expectancy” and “quality of life”. Being overweight is uncomfortable, limiting, and can be a burden on people around you. I have no way of knowing if I’ll live longer, but my life has become immeasurably better since I went from nearly obese to normal weight.
Additionally, I think the biggest factor to control for is socioeconomic status. A well-off fat person is probably going to have better life expectancy than a poor skinny person.
Being overweight is uncomfortable, limiting, and can be a burden on people around you
While I am not disagreeing in any way, I believe it’s important to point out that there’s also a distinct difference between obese and overweight. Often times overweight is being used as an adjective to indicate that someone is outside the normal weight range, but in the context of medicine and the context of this article, it’s a range of BMI values between the normal and obese categories.
Quality of life measures generally find little to no negative effects with the overweight category, but decrease as you continue into obese categories.
High five on changing your trajectory. That’s great.
I too have a similar story, where last year I read “patient appears overweight” for the first time on a doctors chart, and decided to get back into shape.
There’s also a big difference between “life expectancy” and “quality of life”. Being overweight is uncomfortable, limiting, and can be a burden on people around you. I have no way of knowing if I’ll live longer, but my life has become immeasurably better since I went from nearly obese to normal weight.
Additionally, I think the biggest factor to control for is socioeconomic status. A well-off fat person is probably going to have better life expectancy than a poor skinny person.
While I am not disagreeing in any way, I believe it’s important to point out that there’s also a distinct difference between obese and overweight. Often times overweight is being used as an adjective to indicate that someone is outside the normal weight range, but in the context of medicine and the context of this article, it’s a range of BMI values between the normal and obese categories.
Quality of life measures generally find little to no negative effects with the overweight category, but decrease as you continue into obese categories.
High five on changing your trajectory. That’s great.
I too have a similar story, where last year I read “patient appears overweight” for the first time on a doctors chart, and decided to get back into shape.