The FastDay Forum

Well said @Ballerina!

....................

Well, it just HAD to be said

Ballerina x

Thank you @KenCCfor your insight. Must admit sometimes your comments can be quite, and i say this with respect, inciteful, or in other words, look to "stir us up" but maybe its teh way we can read into it as people and in particular woman can be quite defensive about matters related to body and beauty, and where it can be implied we defend our leaning towards being overweight for various reasons.

Hi Juliana...this part of your post particularly struck a chord with me. I find myself being defensive on behalf of my sister and one of my close friends. My sister is morbidly obese and I'm terrified I'm going to lose her. I desperately want her to slim right down but I find myself rationalising her current state (she's been slim for more years than she's been fat so I still refer to "her current state"!) My very close friend is also obese but I only ever use euphemisms when we're talking about her body. I just can't bring myself to say anything as I don't want to hurt her feelings but I feel like such a useless friend (and like a fraud) when I really want to do/say something to help her. It's very difficult.

Seriously???

SERIOUSLY???

Apart from BMI being just a number and apart from the FACT that there is no single/unique bone structure for all of us, are you implying that women are too lazy to look the way men want them???

And why should I give a rat's arse about how men want me to look? What am I, 15 and in high school? A woman basing her appearance on the wishes of men is as sick as a bulimic or an obese one. She needs HELP, not encouragement.

And, one last thing: Having a quick look at men around me, I don't see them caring very much about how women want them to look. Beer bellies, body hair, wrong shoes, baldness... I'm sorry sir but that's not what I ordered!!!

How I have missed that gal

Ballerina x

I second that, lovely to see you here TML and just as sassy too

Thank you girls, it's always nice to see you too!

[Moogie]

Just wanted to let you all know that we are aware of the controversial nature of kencc's comment and are on the case Nipping it in the bud before it can escalate!

How I have missed that gal

Ballerina x

What an awesome team@ballerina And @TML13 back together what they belong
Well said from one of those old fat arses trying to please all men so NOT & NEVER!!!!!!

Ladies, you all jumped to our defense more eloquently than I could, so thank you.
Two things about beauty:
1. It's in the eye of the beholder
2. It's deep within you, whatever size you are.

Ladies, you all jumped to our defense more eloquently than I could, so thank you.
Two things about beauty:
1. It's in the eye of the beholder
2. It's deep within you, whatever size you are.

@PennyForthem well said, you are true to your name!

3. Statistically, for the average person the lowest risk of developing the bad stuff is maintaining a BMI of 21/22.

@kencc do you have a source for those stats please? I've been looking (inefficiently and ineffectually) for a while since I saw Johnson's reference, with no citation, to similar in the Alternate Day Diet.

For me, it's a wonderful example of confirmation bias: not quite sure *why* I so firmly want to be at the 21/22 level, but I do and I've found all sorts of (weak) evidence to back me up (see post up-thread).

As for the stushi over "gauntness" - please don't pull the plug on the debate @Moogie. I personally think that the appearance debate is an important one (being of strange appearance myself; it's also a much bigger issue than just appearance, e.g. disability, conformity etc. but that's seriously OT) and do wonder whether there'd be such and outcry if the point had been made by a female?

As for the stushi over "gauntness" - please don't pull the plug on the debate @Moogie. I personally think that the appearance debate is an important one (being of strange appearance myself; it's also a much bigger issue than just appearance, e.g. disability, conformity etc. but that's seriously OT) and do wonder whether there'd be such and outcry if the point had been made by a female?

If a woman makes a sexist comment about other women I get annoyed, if a man makes a sexist comment about women I get angry. That's the difference.

[carorees]

I found this, not too recent, study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2010254 (Of course just because it's not recent doesn't negate its findings but it would be nice to have confirmation.)

The value of body mass index associated with the lowest morbidity was 22.2 kg/m2 in men and 21.9 kg/m2 in women, according to the quadratic regression curves relating body mass index to morbidity

this was for people aged 30-59. I think in people older than that the ideal might be higher...I need to keep looking.

[carorees]

This paper reports on how waist: height ratio is much more important than BMI as people with normal BMI can still have abdominal adiposity:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12704405

That paper was in Japanese people. Here's another that concludes the same thing in Caucasians:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16261188

[carorees]

And here we have a paper showing the limitations of BMI to predict obesity: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11165884

Significant numbers of people with a BMI below 30 kg/m2 are also obese and thus misclassified by BMI. Percent of body fat and body fat divided by height (m2) are predictable from BMI, but the accuracy of the prediction is lowest when the BMI is below 30 kg/m2. Therefore, measurement of body fat is a more appropriate way to assess obesity in people with a BMI below 30 kg/m2.

They used a definition of obesity as fat% over 30% for women, over 25% for men.