Yeah, because the individual-level studies aren’t worth shit, that’s the point. They’re like the scientific level of analogies. You get these studies that are on like, 15 people or whatever that make some statistically significant finding, then it later turns out that they either very selectively chose their test subjects, the methodology was a complete joke, they p-hacked the findings into worthlessness or all of the above. If the individual level studies scaled up, if they were actually finding something real, they would be reflected in population-level studies. The fact that they aren’t pretty clearly demonstrates that there isn’t a strong correlation.

Low weight is a significant health issue in wealthy countries too. It’s a massive contributor to mortality rates, as much as high adiposity is. But it’s not discussed because it’s less popular to bully people for being skinny as it is to bully people for being fat.

But sure, I’m the one who refuses to change his mind when challenged.

That’s a fun paper, because they basically find no actual negative health effect, then just ignore that fact and continue as if they did.

First, the global focus on the obesity epidemic has largely overshadowed the persistence of underweight in some countries. Our results show the need to address the remaining underweight problem

Second, although adiposity has been consistently shown to be an independent risk factor for several NCDs in individual-level epidemiological studies, at the population level, the effect of rising BMI on the course of mortality reduction has so far been somewhat small in high-income countries

All the study shows is that as people get richer they can overcome being underweight, which is an incredibly good thing - it reduces health risks significantly. Then it goes back to the usual moral panic shit about how that’s actually a bad thing.

Essentially everything you ever heard about weight and fat is ideological, not scientific, in basis. Research consistently finds results that aren’t statistically significant, then just blathers about how that statistically significant result would exist if they could account for x y z. There’s no scientific basis to the claim.

The basics of it are that extremes on either end, of being underweight or very overweight, are health risks. The health risk of being “overweight” are massively overstated, because people like to judge and bully fat people.

Sure I can - find actual average weight, in lbs. of americans in the 1970s and compare them to today. It’s actually pretty easy to change my mind.

The problem is that you can’t find that evidence, because it doesn’t exist, because the studies we have show that average weight hasn’t changed very much.

You’re the person here who is zealously refusing to change their position based on facts, not me - my views are shaped on years of research and review of the scientific literature. Your views are based on your lifetime of being exposed to a media narrative based on pseudoscience. designed to push an ideological goal.

Yes, because BMI is complete junk science. The BMI categories have been changed several times since it was created. It was also devised to work exclusively for white european men. It’s totally worthless for almost every purpose for which it is used.

There’s no real evidence that there are significant average weight differences between today and 70 years ago. Differences in the proportion of the population of “overweight” people is primarily due to changing the definition of what constitutes overweight.

And being fat isn’t a “disease”, any more than having big feet is.

Having a very high weight is known to cause harm, but so is having a low weight, and so is skydiving. Dieting is more harmful to 90% of us than our waistline is, and yet we approve of dieting and refer to fat people as an epidemic.

That measures an effect, not an outcome. Is the goal to improve health, or to sell less sugary drinks? All of the evidence we have around using low-calorie sweeteners is that it does not displace the consumption of other dietary sugars, because there is a compensatory effect.

I invite you to point out what part of my advice you consider to be “shitty”, and back up your case with evidence - because I actually know what I’m talking about.

It’s literally always been the case, people making shit up and having people believe it isn’t a recent change lol

If healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, pulses, etc. were subsidised instead of animal products then they’d essentially be free. Affordability is a huge problem, at least here in the UK. Thousands of people use food banks because they’re struggling with the cost of living. vegan btw

Everything about public health policy sucks. The best way to improve nutrition and health is by making eating healthy affordable and easy. It’s too hard and expensive for working people to prepare healthy meals for a family also working 40+ hours a week.

So many myths and pseudoscience around health, wellness, etc. Basically everything that is talked about is based on really shaky science at best, and outright lies and nonsense at worst. Way too much emphasis is put on weight loss, dieting, waist circumference and so on. Dieting is hugely unhealthy, weight cycling (losing and regaining weight) has worse health implications than just remaining at your original weight, and for most people the weight they are is fine, the health risks around weight are hugely overstated. The BMI is a worthless metric without any scientific basis. Almost everything that people say about sugar is wrong - it’s not physiologically addictive, it doesn’t cause hyperactivity and it’s not poisonous, and it doesn’t cause type 2 diabetes - the causes of type 2 diabetes are generally not well understood.

The most important thing is having a varied diet with some fruit and vegetables and getting some regular activity - something that you enjoy! Doesn’t have to be major or whatever, if it’s just going for a walk or paintball or whatever, that’s great!

Fad diets are hugely unhealthy, in general, and should be avoided.

I agree completely with your comment but I think you probably shouldn’t have brought the Holocaust into it really!

yeah I’m gonna go ahead and reject your PR, please change this function to accept a decimal value between 0 and 1