Health / Food / Blood Pressure (merged)

Mooney_Driver wrote:

No, but going vegetarian would :)

I don’t see that either. To me vegetarian food is just food. Some is good, some boring, just like non-vegetarian food. I’ve cut down noticeably on meat consumption (particularly of red meat) the last few years and that hasn’t affected my quality of life in a bad way.

I think most people know if they are of a healthy weight or not, and can tell from looking in the mirror (with the exception of those who have a mental illness such as Anorexia Nervosa). The BMI numbers can be useful in demonstrating the extent for those who think “it’s only a little” or deny the obvious and need “evidence”. @Mooney_Driver certainly knows he is a fat b*st*rd without a calculator

What many don’t know are the consequences of being overweight, which isn’t helped by the fact that – much as in smoking – you can have many happy and healthy overweight years before it gets bad, and it doesn’t go bad for everyone.

Airborne_Again wrote:

Consider that the definitions of BMI 18.5-25 as “normal” and 25-30 as “overweight” are simply based on (old) statistics on actual weight distribution and not on any health considerations.

Are they?

I’d always thought the normal range was somehow objectively defined as the lower and upper bound of what a ‘not skinny and not fat’ person might weigh. I didn’t think they’d been applied as points on the normal distribution to put the peak of the curve in the middle at some point in time.

But if it is the case, just because the peak of the curve starts to shift right over time (which I’m sure it does in most western societies) that doesn’t mean that ‘normal’ from a health perspective moves to match it.

To repeat my personal data point, if I got my BMI up to 27 or higher then I would be looking pretty fat. Extending that to the wider population, excluding outlying cases (such as athletes and bodybuilders), I don’t think you’d find too many people of BMI 27+ where their physicians wouldn’t agree that shedding a few kg would be a good idea.

Graham wrote:

To repeat my personal data point, if I got my BMI up to 27 or higher then I would be looking pretty fat.

FWIW my experience with marrying a great cook is that your BMI can rise from 22.5 to 25.5 with anybody noticing, you still look thin. However, carrying around the weight equivalent of an extra 4 USG of Avgas on your body is noticeable, and I’d like to lose 3 gallons!

Cobalt wrote:

@Mooney_Driver certainly knows he is a fat b*st*rd without a calculator

You’ve got that right! And I fly a notoriously tight airplane to top it

Airborne_Again wrote:

Consider that the definitions of BMI 18.5-25 as “normal” and 25-30 as “overweight” are simply based on (old) statistics on actual weight distribution and not on any health considerations.

That is what I have repeatedly read too and that is why I put the question forward, not even out of own interest but out of curiosity. (Otherwise I’d not study POH’s of airplanes I will never be able to afford either, but I am a bit of a numbers nerd when it comes to that).

Graham wrote:

I got my BMI up to 27 or higher then I would be looking pretty fat.

This was me about 30 years ago at about 85/90 kg… I’d be happy to have that weight back and I will.

Graham wrote:

But if it is the case, just because the peak of the curve starts to shift right over time (which I’m sure it does in most western societies) that doesn’t mean that ‘normal’ from a health perspective moves to match it.

Of course not. That’s not at all what I’m saying!

Cobalt wrote:

I think most people know if they are of a healthy weight or not, and can tell from looking in the mirror (with the exception of those who have a mental illness such as Anorexia Nervosa).

I tend to disagree with this, partly because as a teenager I was on the plump side and was wholly unaware of it. As I go clothes shopping only under duress, I probably see myself in a full length mirror once a year, but even then the tendency is to compare oneself to those around you and as the nation becomes more overweight or obese, one’s reference changes.

As an example, here’s Augustus Gloop, the archetypal glutton from Charlie and the Chocolate factory:

Frankly the 2005 version isn’t terribly far out of the ordinary today, and the parents of the 1971 version would be unlikely to consider their child overweight these days.

Or the 1949 film ‘Passport to Pimlico’:

You don’t entirely get the impression from still pictures, but if you watch the film… Golly, they look thin. The clothes are hanging off them, but as they walk about they seem vital. And by and large they were well nourished. Thanks to rationing, the average diet improved and during WWII, British people’s life expectancy went up.

People have always tended to start as slim teenagers and put on weight as they get older. Working in an university town in a job that regularly involves looking at people’s bellies, it’s noticeable that most of the students are already overweight when they arrive whereas this wasn’t the case even a decade ago. The statistics agree with my general impression, and if I could find a similar graph that was up to date I have no doubt it would be even worse. There is the occasional bodybuilder who has a high BMI due to his muscle mass, but the overwhelming majority of people using this as justification are guilty of wishful thinking.

So what’s happening. Should we criticise those who haven’t the self discipline to keep off the chocolate? Is the nation collectively losing its moral fiber?

My workplace is swimming in junk food. Patients bring in chocolates by way of thanks. Whenever somebody has a birthday they bring in a cake. Whenever somebody leaves, they bring in a cake. Students get into the habit of baking cakes at the end of their rotations. In a department with 70 members of staff, this results in several cakes a week. Speaking personally, I have the moral fiber to avoid buying junk food when I go shopping, but if you put it in front of me at the end of a long shift, I tend to lose my resolve.

Justine recently dislocated her shoulder and it took four teams to get her out of the narrow and extremely slippery country path, to hospital.

Ouch! The sentiment and the chocolates will have been appreciated, so don’t feel bad. I hope she’s doing OK. My view that the health service is suffering from a surfeit of cake is a minority opinion, strongly held.

Personally my feeling is that after looking after someone, thanks and a smile are ample. Cards are useful because in a metric-driven society, they get scanned and counted up during the yearly appraisal (this makes me sad, because it is far nicer to simply appreciate a card for its own sake).

I often think that a very thoughtful present, if one feels one must, is good quality coffee or tea as the stuff in staffrooms isn’t usually all that nice.

Back just after WWII and into the early 50’s many families made their own cakes regularly. But sugar was still rationed and alternatives had to be used and cakes contained a lot less sugar as we know it today.
Also in the 50’s people were more active. In the country whole families would go potato picking or fruit picking on farms (backbreaking work for very little pay). Schools had playing fields next door and there were regular inter school sports competitions.
Kids often cycled or walked to school and home again. In many parts of our so called civilised world parents wont let them these days? Instead they drive them to and pick them up from the school gates.
The resurgence of cycling amongst adults could provide a welcome balance, but amongst many of these adults cycling is an elitist fad and may not last. Just look at how much people spend on buying a new bicycle or all that lycra gear and now added electric power. What’s wrong with the old vicars bike €50 from the local junk shop and why the lycra, you are unlikely to be going 100km on a Sunday morning averaging 25km hour.
But if you are, well fair play to you and you deserve to be healthy, you’ve earned it.