In France they don’t yet have this issue much because the culture (and crucially even among the poor) is to go to the market and buy a load of veg. Also, my guess is that France has a lot more women at home, relatively speaking. If the “cook” has to go to work, not much food preparation will be done.
All the French women I know (plenty) work, or at least did until they retired. And to the extent that I know, they are all competent (or more) cooks, who know how to take good quality raw ingredients and turn them into a healthy meal.
French markets are a real treat to visit, but most food is bought in supermarkets, just like anywhere else. However the supermarkets sell veg, fruit, fish and meat which is close to the quality of what you would get at a market. You could buy everything you eat at our local Leclerc here in Cap Breton, and eat extreme healthily and enjoyably.
It’s just a question of culture. In France (and Italy) eating well is built in to the lifestyle, for most people anyway. In the UK, a lot less so.
Airborne_Again wrote:
so I don’t have the motivation anymore to try to reduce weight drastically.
So it’s exactly as I said – the significantly-reduced risk of severe/fatal Covid-19 is (for some reason) not a sufficient motivation to lose 20kg.
If the threat of Covid-19 isn’t sufficient to motivate people into making sensible life changes that they should be making anyway, then why is it sufficient for governments to impose draconian restrictions on individual freedoms and destroy economies?
Graham wrote:
the significantly-reduced risk of severe/fatal Covid-19 is (for some reason) not a sufficient motivation to lose 20kg.
In a sense of fairness, we need to make sure everyone understands what is being said and discussed here:
- when we talk about “significantly increased/reduced risk”, we are only talking about severe obesity with BMI>40 (for a 1.8m tall person that is a weight of more than 130kg). Below a BMI of 40, the weight has little to now impact on risk.
- the absolute impact of loosing 20kg of weight (which is about 5 BMI points for a 1.80m person) is about the same as the impact of 10 years of age. (i.e.: a 50-60 yr. old male with BMI 45 has about the same morbidity risk as a 60-70 yr. old male with normal BMI.
Therefore: Yes, if somebody is currently above BMI of 40 loosing wheight is a good idea with respect to COVID – below that not so much…
Malibuflyer wrote:
Yes, if somebody is currently above BMI of 40 loosing wheight is a good idea with respect to COVID – below that not so much…
I’m way below that…
if somebody is currently above BMI of 40 loosing wheight is a good idea with respect to COVID – below that not so much…
It takes 5 mins on google to establish that is far from being the case.
Peter wrote:
It takes 5 mins on google to establish that is far from being the case.
Google might not be the best reference for scientific evidence – science itself is much better place to look for scientific results. E.g.: here
(The full article requires a subscription – the figure with the core results is free, however).
Malibuflyer wrote:
Google might not be the best reference for scientific evidence – science itself is much better place to look for scientific results. E.g.: here
(The full article requires a subscription – the figure with the core results is free, however).
Thanks. Very interesting. (I could read the full article.) This is not at all what I’ve expected. In particular “Our data also suggest that risk may not be uniform across different populations, with high BMI more strongly associated with COVID-19 mortality in younger adults and male patients, but not in female patients and older adults.”
For people over 60, you have to be above BMI 45 for a substantial risk increase, from the overweight itself. Of course a high BMI increases the risk of comorbidities such as diabetes and high blood pressure
It has been incredibly clear for some time now that those suffering severe Covid-19 are disproportionately those who are overweight and obese. You don’t need a BMI of anything like 40 (which is enormously obese, beyond all sense) to have this increased risk. One only has to look at who is in the hospitals with Covid-19.
I’ve just read your link and what jumps out at me most is this line:
We found a striking association between BMI and risk for death among patients with a diagnosis of COVID-19 in an integrated health care system; this association was independent of obesity-related comorbidities and other potential confounders.
While it may be J-shaped and affect BMI>40 the most, I don’t believe it concluded that <40 there is no increased risk.
But hey, it shouldn’t get in the way of a good excuse as to why a healthy BMI is unnecessary.
LeSving wrote:
Our bodies have evolved through hundreds of millennia to live long healthy lives eating a certain variety of sustenance.
But that is the paradox. We are not…..medics are keeping the elderly artificially alive, stuffing them with Big Pharma products, to make sure the sunshine trips for the docs and buyers do not stop 
Or as @Peter calle them, dem wideboys……
Humans life expectancy is probably equal to centuries ago. The difference is medical intervention. Drugs keep the codgers alive, not food…..
Yes indeed. We “evolved” to live only long enough to reproduce, with a secondary factor (still much debated) that the “herd” benefits from the “wisdom” of older individuals but only as long as they are not a significant burden. So all the talk that we evolved to eat meat and therefore it is good for us is nonsense. We can certainly digest it and it is a high energy food but the desirability of eating it in quantity reduces as one gets older; one needs all the help one can get to retain a decent quality of life. All the evidence is that early humans got their hands on very little meat (it is hard work to catch animals – I suggest you try it) and lived mostly on nuts and such like.
