AdamFrisch wrote:
But this is such a complex issue. Look at the film below from restored footage from London in 1967. In the 7 min film I can’t spot a single overweight person. Not even the older folks look obese. Contrast that to any street scene today. What changed?
If you think they’re slim, watch ‘Passport to Pimlico’ – made very shortly post-war. I often wonder whether the few years of caloric restriction goes some way to explaining why we have so many very elderly people around today.
Many think that many people today will pre-decease their parents, which is a staggering indictment of the health situation in some socio-economic groups in what are supposed to be developed countries.
I merged two threads which became fairly similar – one about health and the other initially about blood pressure.
That observation is only applicable if you are overweight and already have elevated blood pressure. Also age matters a lot. A 20-year old weighting 150 kg probably won’t have elevated blood pressure unless they have have one of the rare inherited forms, whereas at 60 you have a fair chance of having elevated blood pressure even at normal weight.
I am sure you are right Medewok, but in GA there are probably 10x more pilots of 60 (actually flying) than of 20 
Very few people have the time and the money at 20.
As to “overweight” you need only to look around the airfield
A 20 year old weighing 150kg (unless going for Mr Universe or whatever it is called) is heading for huge problems down the road.
All three points you make are correct Peter.
Weight reduction and physical activity is always advisable, not only to reduce BP. In medicine we have the term “metabolic disease”, which is a catch-all term for elevated BP, elevated blood sugar (diabetes mellitus), elevated blood fats. This is what in turn leads to coronary heart disease, strokes or other vascular problems.
The root cause for metabolic disease is always a combination of not enough physical activity, eating too much (and the wrong food), unlucky genetics and smoking.
Ocular Hypertension / High Eye Pressure / Glaucoma
Here is an interesting data point which I know will be relevant to many pilots. The number I meet who have lost their medical seems to be running around 1 per week.
Mine was around 20 for many years; this is close to the upper limit of 22.
Today I measured 13 and 16. This is a huge drop since 1 year ago.
The only possible explanation is dropping meat and dairy and the resulting 8kg (10%) weight loss.
BP dropped some 20/15 also.
I cut out meat about 18 months ago apart from the odd 99 pence Maccy Dee Burger – when I land at Exeter and pop into MacDonald’s, then all the fat people around you remind you how good it is to keep to that plant based diet!
Immediately post war there was a lot of starvation of course, particularly in Germany. Of course the people got healthier then and lost all their overweight, there was few diabetes. The question is, at what price.
Today we have a weird religious war on health. On the one side are those who will spend all their lifes telling others how to live (and IMHO many so much relish this favorite past time of most people so much that they don’t give a damn what those people really look like or feel like) and then there are plenty of folks who tell us people are getting too old and it would be best for the economy and population development if we all snuff it 3 days after retirement (or as some think any day after 50, as over 50 workers just cost too much but are too full of themselfs to be of any use.
So what’s it gonna be? Or do some diets and religious nutters like vegans actually work in that direction? I sometimes feel the constant nagging costs me more life time than if I had that 22 BMI my old aviation doctor wanted to see. Thankfully my new one is a bit more normal and actually told me a 22 BMI for me (33.5 right now) would probably literally mean over my dead body…. apart that it’s been long proven that longlivety is highest at around 27.
It could well be, MD, that life expectancy peaks at such a BMI, but that is not the same as the length of a “quality life”.
Anybody who visits the waiting room at their local hospital and surveys the scene, which tends to resemble something out of Mad Max, might wonder.
One reason why diabetes is such a public health challenge today is not because (the mostly hugely overweight) people die of it early, but because they don’t.
