OT - Grr NHS weight flyer



in message <[email protected]>, Arthur Clune
('[email protected]') wrote:

> Roos Eisma <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> : "What is a healthy weight?
> : Obesity is related to body size. You can check your size by
> : measuring around your waist with a tape. Health risks are greater
> : when the waist is more than 94 cm/37 inches in men, or 80 cm/32
> : inches in women."
>
> I'm going to go against the rest of the group and defend this here.
>
> Yes, Roos clearly isn't overweight, but
> is this *such* a bad general rule?


Yes. I have a female friend who is a well proportioned adult - not a
dwarf, not stunted by illness or disease, not malformed or
misproportioned - who is four foot nine inches tall. I have several
other adult friends who are under five feet. If they had thirty two
inch waists they would be obese indeed. I have other female friends who
are in excess of six feet tall. A 32 inch waist on them would not be
obese at all.

Adult women in our culture vary in height by about 33%. A single fixed
measurement cannot be appropriate for all women. The same is equally
true of men, of course.

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
;; Sending your money to someone just because they've erected
;; a barrier of obscurity and secrets around the tools you
;; need to use your data does not help the economy or spur
;; innovation. - Waffle Iron Slashdot, June 16th, 2002
 
On 1/2/05 4:42 pm, in article [email protected],
"Alan Braggins" <[email protected]> wrote:

> In article <[email protected]>, Paul Rudin wrote:
>>
>> Or indeed buy your own. I've got one of those Tanita things. I'm not
>> sure how accurate the body fat thing is, but they're decent electronic
>> scales anyway. The only thing I didn't quite realize in advance was
>> that you really need a hard surface to use it on. So we can't use ours
>> in the bathrooms - which are carpeted.

>
> I lost over half a stone when I put a piece of plywood under my cheap
> mechanical scales instead of having them directly on the carpet....


Must have been a fairly big piece of plywood then.. Why were you holding the
plywood anyway?

...d
 
Roos Eisma wrote:
> Well, according to the latest NHS Tayside door-to-door leaflet I am now
> obese.
> I was never very impressed with the BMI method for my body shape, but
> the NHS think that even that is too complicated for the general audience
> and have now issued the following guidelines:
>
> "What is a healthy weight?
> Obesity is related to body size. You can check your size by measuring
> around your waist with a tape. Health risks are greater when the waist is
> more than 94 cm/37 inches in men, or 80 cm/32 inches in women."
>
> So do they expect me to have the same waist as someone half my height...?
>
> Roos - 32 inches breathing in, 30 breathing out :)
>
> Just noticed there's a feedback form on the last page, and an email
> address...


Well. Unless you've been singlehandedly devouring the chocolate output
of the entire of Switzerland since last summer, I'd say they're probably
being a little overzealous! :)

On the one hand, any attempt to encourage exercise is a good thing. On
the other hand, promoting fitness rather than waist size is a better
idea. I'm not sure how this might work, but slimness is not a
prerequisite for fitness as many professional models amply demonstrate!

If you do write them a nasty email, be sure to keep us posted. This
could prove highly entertaining!

Jon
 
Simon Brooke <[email protected]> wrote:

: Adult women in our culture vary in height by about 33%. A single fixed
: measurement cannot be appropriate for all women. The same is equally
: true of men, of course.

It's not a bad start though. A simple, easy to remember rule that works
for most of the population is needed. What would you suggest that is
better?

Arthur

--
Arthur Clune PGP/GPG Key: http://www.clune.org/pubkey.txt
It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness
 
in message <[email protected]>, Arthur Clune
('[email protected]') wrote:

> Simon Brooke <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> : Adult women in our culture vary in height by about 33%. A single
> : fixed measurement cannot be appropriate for all women. The same is
> : equally true of men, of course.
>
> It's not a bad start though. A simple, easy to remember rule that
> works for most of the population is needed. What would you suggest
> that is better?


Why is such a rule 'needed'?

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

Anagram: I'm soon broke.
 
Roos Eisma wrote:
> Well, according to the latest NHS Tayside door-to-door leaflet I am now
> obese.
>
> "What is a healthy weight?
> Obesity is related to body size. You can check your size by measuring
> around your waist with a tape. Health risks are greater when the waist is
> more than 94 cm/37 inches in men, or 80 cm/32 inches in women."
>
> So do they expect me to have the same waist as someone half my height...?
>
> Roos - 32 inches breathing in, 30 breathing out :)


Yet another attack on those that do not conform to the artificial norm.
 
Roos Eisma wrote:

> Well, according to the latest NHS Tayside door-to-door leaflet I am now
> obese.
>
> Just noticed there's a feedback form on the last page, and an email
> address...


Post it here then!
 
On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 12:55:36 +0000, David Hansen wrote
(in article <[email protected]>):

>> Well, according to the latest NHS Tayside door-to-door leaflet I am now
>> obese.

>
> When you took part in the uk.rec.cycling gathering in Edinburgh last
> year you looked anything but obese.


What is this gathering you speak of?

Did it involve high calorie alcohol beverages or exercise?

Cheers,

Steev

--
The reply-to email address is a spam trap.
Email steve 'at' shodgson 'dot' org 'dot' uk
 
Arthur Clune wrote:

> Yes, Roos clearly isn't overweight, but
> is this *such* a bad general rule? Ditto BMI - it has problems but
> quoting "X is a bodybuilder" as a reason why it is useless for most
> people (who aren't fit, slim *or* muscular) always seemed a spurious
> argument to me.


It's **** because it's even /less/ likely than BMI to give a true
indication and it works badly from both ends. Someone less educated
than Roos but a similar size may think she's lined up for health
disasters if they don't lose weight, which could actually /reduce/ their
net health, and a 1.5m lass who should be a waif could look at it and
think "I don't need to worry about my 75 cm waist!".

It's an incredibly dumbed down measure.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email protected] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
 
"Arthur Clune" <[email protected]> writes:

>Peter Clinch <[email protected]> wrote:


>: It's an incredibly dumbed down measure.


>http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12219872&dopt=Abstract


>http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12324286&dopt=Abstract


>It appears to be a measure that works for a reasonable spread of people.


The comment on the second paper is here:
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/76/4/699

One of the things they say is that simple data can be very useful for
population studies, where misclassification of individuals is not
important, while for individual decisons differences in body shapes play
a role.
Oddly enough he still does not mention height, when trying to relate
waist to BMI he mentions that some 'false positives' may arise from
different shapes while a larger height has a very direct effect as
well.
It also sounds like they are more worried about not missing out on
identifying onbese people than about the opposite, which does make
sense: people that are not overweight are likely to know that.


He does mention that calculating BMI is too complicated for the general
public...

I think I'd like something like 'how much flab can you grab next to your
belly button' (which reminded Pete of the slogan 'pinch an inch' :)

Roos
 
Roos Eisma <[email protected]> wrote:

: He does mention that calculating BMI is too complicated for the general
: public...

Which indeed it was and is.

: I think I'd like something like 'how much flab can you grab next to your
: belly button' (which reminded Pete of the slogan 'pinch an inch' :)

Ah the famous "if you can pinch more than an inch" advertisting for some
breakfast "health" cereal or other, complete with pictures of tonded models
pinching themselves on the side just above the hips, where everyone
can pinch more than an inch. Indeed, if you can't pinch more than an inch
there more lard is needed ASAP :)

Every since seeing it I've thought that campaign was an inspired and
very un-ethical way to sell cereal products.

Arthur


--
Arthur Clune PGP/GPG Key: http://www.clune.org/pubkey.txt
It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness
 
Roos Eisma wrote:

> It also sounds like they are more worried about not missing out on
> identifying onbese people than about the opposite, which does make
> sense: people that are not overweight are likely to know that.


Though the number of people with anorexia suggests that there's a number
who aren't. Unfortunately, "overweight" is tied into fashion to some
degree and there's a blur between healthy weight and desired weight. I
think they should be the same thing, but supermodel wannabes may well not.

> He does mention that calculating BMI is too complicated for the general
> public...


Though if you're putting out a pamphlet (which is what is happening
here) you could put a quick reference table in without needing to bother
the public's brains too much, or losing too much space.
You could at least do it relating a waist measurement to height, which
is still far from perfect but takes /some/ account of differences of
overall /scale/ of a body.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email protected] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
 
Arthur Clune wrote:
> Simon Brooke <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Adult women in our culture vary in height by about 33%. A single
>> fixed measurement cannot be appropriate for all women. The same is
>> equally true of men, of course.

>
> It's not a bad start though. A simple, easy to remember rule that
> works for most of the population is needed. What would you suggest
> that is better?


What about this - "if you are unhappy because of your current weight and
losing weight would make your life significantly more enjoyable, then you're
overweight."

Much easier than this talk of body-mass index and height/weight ratios.
Fitness should be about whether your body is fit enable you to lead the life
you want to lead.

--
Akin

aknak at aksoto dot idps dot co dot uk
 
Roos Eisma wrote:

> One of the references referred to says that waist size is independent
> of height which I find very odd. Medics?


Not a medic nor pretend to be one for the purposes of spending most
afternoons on the golf course, but TWFKAML and a fellow (female) Nut Miner
are as near as makes no odds the same height. However, the latter is about
half as wide again in all dimensions from the shoulders down. She's far
from lardy, but TWFKAML is lean in the extreme...

--

Dave Larrington - http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk/
World Domination?
Just find a world that's into that kind of thing, then chain to the
floor and walk up and down on it in high heels. (Mr. Sunshine)
 
Epetruk wrote:

> What about this - "if you are unhappy because of your current weight and
> losing weight would make your life significantly more enjoyable, then you're
> overweight."


A "medical document" telling potential anorexics that they really
/should/ starve themselves. Not a Cunning Plan, I feel...

> Much easier than this talk of body-mass index and height/weight ratios.
> Fitness should be about whether your body is fit enable you to lead the life
> you want to lead.


If you really /want/ to sit on a couch eating crisps and watching TV I
don't think the state should try and intervene, but it shouldn't put out
documents saying this is a Good Idea! Overweight is not simply a state
of mind.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email protected] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
 
"Epetruk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

>
> What about this - "if you are unhappy because of your current weight and
> losing weight would make your life significantly more enjoyable, then
> you're
> overweight."
>


What I don't like about that sort of approach is that there are a load of
people who are unhealthily underweight who see themselves as fat & must lose
weight - a lot of them women, young & old alike. There is huge social
pressure on women, in particular, to be *thin*. Anything over a size 10 and
you are a waste of space with no worth - apparently. It's amazing the number
of people who think it is their duty to remind me of what a shame it is that
I'm fat even though I haven't asked for their opinion. Apparently their
being slimmer than me means that they can cast aspertions on my worth as a
human being :-/ I *am* overweight (and doing something about it - lost a
couple of stone since middle of December) and understand that a lot of the
issue of weight, be it too much or too little, is what goes on in the head
as much as what goes in the mouth and it's a long-term thing. I'm attending
local meetings of a slimming club simply because I need the discipline of a
group meeting. I see lots of people there who are *thin*, not just slim and
some seem to be obsessed not with learning how to remain slim, but in
further weight loss. Indeed, quite a few of these superior beings are
gobsmacked that I turn up to meetings on my bike - as they think it's far
too strenuous a thing for them to be able to do ;-)

Cheers, helen s


> Much easier than this talk of body-mass index and height/weight ratios.
> Fitness should be about whether your body is fit enable you to lead the
> life
> you want to lead.
>
> --
> Akin
>
> aknak at aksoto dot idps dot co dot uk
>
>