Junkfood science blog http://tinyurl.com/ypshq7

http://tinyurl.com/347xy4

Eve, that's exactly my pet peeve about height-weight proportionate too. The phrase assumes that there is a correct proportion of height to weight. Everyone has a height to weight ratio. And it varies depending on the elevation you're standing at, what you're wearing, what your mass is, how tall you are, what you ate, and your state of health.

And BMI is a broken measurement. Brad Pitt is overweight according to BMI. Seriously, Brad Pitt. Overweight.

http://kateharding.net/bmi-illustrated/

I expect other (radical, militant, armchair, progressive, whatever) feminists to support fat acceptance just as readily as they do other anti-racist, feminist, queer, and social justice causes. This is part of my personal manifesta. I don't expect people to agree with me about everything. I do expect people to own up to the attitudes and prejudices they carry honestly.

What I mean is, if you want my support for your progressive cause, whatever that cause is, I want your support in return. I expect you to not tacitly approve of fat bashing. I expect you to examine your own body attitudes. If you consider yourself my friend, I expect you to tell your friends you don't agree with them if they're fat bashing. I don't care if you do it in private or public, but your silence is tacit approval.

No bashing.

Very clearly stated, as usual, and thanks.

Yeah it is. I believe last time I checked my BMI, I was somewhere in the seriously obese category. While I could certainly drop 20 pounds or at least firm it up, I've never been called fat or anything close to it... and yet the media keeps making all these reports about American schoolkids using BMI. Feh.

Glad I read the comments because I was just going to say this.

Consider me on Team Atropa. Unfit = Unfabulous. Fit = Fabulous. Fit does not equal thin. Being healthy is my personal crusade and if anyone wants an eCoach, just say so.

I also wanted to say publicly that if anyone wants to comment here and can't, please email my tracker profile, perspicacity777 and I'll unblock you. The conditions of posting are of course that you are engaging honestly, and have read the articles/studies/blogs/comments that I've linked to. In short, I won't unblock you so you can say "lose weight or kill urself, fattie."

IAWTC

My dad, who is in no way large, is considered overweight by his BMI...my dad eats like a bird and would be considered thin by anyone who meets him.

Fat acceptance especially benefits people who have an emotionally unhealthy relationship with food.

I think I just messaged my eAuntie something similar to this. I dont agree with people I love damaging their bodies and threatening their lives through overeating, but I dont think that publicly shaming them is going to help them lose their emotional dependence on food. Much like publicly shaming me is not going to make me lose my emotional dependence on nicotine. I dont want my family and friends who are unhealthily obese to *want* to be fat...but I do want them to love themselves (and I will love them) no matter what they look like. *babble babble babble*

I am proud to call you my friend.

It's hard for me to express exactly what I mean here. I am not trying to deny that there are lots of people who are fat because they have a poor diet and don't get much physical exercise. Those people exist. They need to change their lifestyle or else they're going to die of a sedentary life.

What I guess I'm trying to get at is that fat shaming under the guise of caring about someone's health is still fat shaming, I don't care who does it. If you know someone who is inactive, encourage them to be more active or support their desire to be more active. If you know someone who has a disordered relationship with food, whether that's overeating, emotionally eating, refusing to eat, or binging and purging, or obsessive calorie counting, you should definitely encourage them in a healthier relationship with food without blaming them for that relationship. http://tinyurl.com/2ohtrg

This can extend to all kinds of hating, not just about body issues, but faith, intelligence, and on and on. None of us can live up to perfection, we all have enormous flaws that we try to hide. Most especially from ourselves.

Peace is way more than an absence of violence. We can all find ways to be less negative about all the things we "hate".

Obviously (to me) I am leaving in a bit for my difficult support group. I am filled with compassion, I am filled with compassion, I will stay filled with compassion for the next few hours, or bust.

I don't think I have ever disliked myself, but I have sometimes doubted other people's relationship priorities.

So threads like the one going around lately aren't, in any way, about promoting an unhealthy lifestyle, and that's what the critics fail to understand. It's about accepting your body the way it is, bumps, warts, bulges, and all, and that's not equivalent to saying, "sit on your fat ass and eat chips."

I really liked that atropa included in her post that not everyone needs to be attracted to people of any body type. Though my top priority in a relationship is not physical attraction, it is a priority. And I dont see how you can really work around that. How anyone can work around that. *shrug* Certain people will never find me attractive because I have small breasts. This is something everyone faces. Someone we find physically attractive will not find us physically attractive. Im sure you didnt intend it this way, but it sounds as if you are saying their priorities are messed up because they dont want to be in a relationship with you because of the way you look.

I think the deprivation thing is why most diets fail. If I feel like eating something, I will. I try to come up with alternatives to the high-fat or high-calorie stuff, or just have small amounts, but deprivation leads to craving.

That's the whole point. It's perfectly alright for people to be disgusted by the sight of fat bodies. It's just fine to be disgusted by small breasts. What's not ok is spreading that disgust and hate around unsolicited and tell fat people or small-breasted women, or what the fuck ever, that they need to change because they're not attractive. Well, attractive to who? And why do they need to change to suit someone who isn't attracted to them in the first place? Why should they hate that part of themselves simply because someone else does?

Below is a repost of my comment made in SistrMryLazarus's journal, upon the arrival of the usual fat-bashing trolls:

.......

Ah, so I see the Trench Coat Mafia has arrived. How lucky we are.

A couple of little points:

1) The definition of "obese" is hardly settled, indeed in the USA it has been a moving target for years. The US government has changed it several times, with the trend being increasingly thinner. http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/72/5/1074

2) If we had to make a list of all of the things that people in this society do that endangers their health, we could write for days. Yet certain small-minded, petty individuals who have nothing better to do like to focus on the weight issue as if it is a reflection of someone's character, as if someone who is heavy affects their personal quality-of-life. Nothing could be further from the truth. (unless they happen to have shares in some clothing manufacturer that only serves thin people)

3) One must question the motivation of the fat-haters. Ask them why they spend their time and energy on lecturing people who don't meet their BMI criteria. Does anyone really believe that their motivation stems from anything other than a desire to ridicule others?

4) Yes, western society is getting fatter, this is a result of a combination of factors, not least include the sedentary lifestyle at home and work, now made possible thanks to technological advances. This affects everyone. Yes, there is a loose correlation of mortality with severe obesity, but then again, you find these correlations with many things, including heredity, family life, the neighborhood you live in, the type of employment you choose, how much stress is in your life, and many others.

If the "fat haters" were sincerely interested in "helping" people, they wouldn't spend most of their time and energy they devote to such "altruistic" endeavors ridiculing people who don't meet their BMI criteria and trying to make them feel subhuman. Secondly, one would expect that we'd hear about them lobbying their municipal and congressional representatives to remove junkfood from schools, stop junkfood advertising targeting young children, institute workplace rules that stipulate minimal levels of time away from desks and computers, laws limiting daily television and other electronic device exposure time for children, etc etc etc. This "one trick pony" approach reveals that the real intent isn't to help anyone, but rather to seek to entertain themselves with adolescent-style bullying games.

.......

I admit that I am not that tolerant of widespread acceptance of being fat, or rather, being obese (I am equally intolerant of the stick-thin-is-the-only-way-to-be-beautiful view). By acceptance, I mean the thinking that it's perfectly OK to be like that over the long term. By and large, medically-defined obesity is unhealthy and will lead to early death and put more stress on medical systems. The increasing prevalence of bariatric surgery as a solution, while effective, is frightening, because people are effectively maiming themselves in an effort to lose weight, despite the fact that the dietary and activity changes that precede the surgery normally lead to significant weight loss on their own.

Granted, the medical definition of obese occasionally gets it wrong - most of NZ's infamous rugby team would be overweight if not obese, but then they're professional athletes. If you are, by all means, ignore the BMI. Most people aren't.

85% of people with Type II diabetes are classified as overweight or obese - it has some serious complications of its own. Heart disease, a major (if not the major) cause of death, has obesity as one of its primary risk factors. There are a number of other complications: http://www.obesityinamerica.org/complications.html. Sure, someone can be obese and otherwise healthy, but I'd say the majority of obese people aren't.

A person who has eaten more energy than they output and become overweight or obese should accept their body, yes. They should also accept, as I do, that they are the cause of this happening - they can't all have metabolic disorders! For me, at least, my BMI of 26.5 (= overweight) is because I am lazy. I do not enjoy exercise but I have plenty of time in which to do it. I eat a very crappy diet. I also see kids at school having 1.5L of sugary drink for breakfast, or pigging out on chips and pies at lunch, and I think they are doomed - dooomed, I tell you! - if they already eat like that at their young age. Whatever happened to good old sandwiches?

I don't go around being scathing towards fat, overweight or obese people merely because they are fat, overweight or obese. That's a lame reason to pick on someone, and hardly helpful, as is better said in the OP.

I do, however, privately wonder how the more extremely obese people could possibly have let themselves get that fat, especially when it really starts to impinge on their ability to move or, say, even get out of bed (I'm thinking half-tonne man here).

As for all the weight-loss TV shows, I applaud The Biggest Loser (and, in NZ, Downsize Me), for showing that significant weight loss is possible merely with changes in diet and exercise (albeit extreme exercise!). The ones that involve (prohibitively expensive) surgery I am less enamoured of, as they are not practical solutions for most people, especially those who become fat through reliance on cheap foods.

Thank you, sfguy, for pointing out that part of the reason behind the "obesity epidemic" is that "obesity" is a moving, shrinking target. And wimsey, for bringing up a great point. Not only did I not comment in your thread until well after the fact, but didn't even see cricket's because it wasn't linked off of harpy's journal. Plus, I'm not quite sure why we were expected to show up on a thread to support someone who wasn't showing anyone else support.

And lastly, I hope it doesn't go without saying that agreeing with this thread and the ones written by pkcose and mookMJK are mutually exclusive. No one can both agree that 'obesity is inherently unhealthy' and that fat does not exclude fit.

As for biggest loser, I think it's great that people get more physically fit on national tv. Fantastic. The problem is, they vote off people who are still getting fitter, but aren't losing enough weight. That makes the primary goal "lose weight" instead of "be fit." Again, obsession with thinness. And lastly, there are so many different experts that believe different things when it comes to how to eat, and how to exercise that it's either a matter of luck or incredible perception to wade through the bullshit and find the "right" way that's both safe and effective for free. It's much easier to pay someone (actually, more like a team of doctors, dieticians, and trainers) who you trust to personally coach you through the process. Health care like that is restricted to reality show contestants, and the middle and upper classes.

Atta girl ......proud of you, keep it up!!

I know how I got to be fat. Or rather, I've never been not fat. If you put on a pound a week, that's 50 lbs in a year, and 2 years later you are 100lbs heavier than when you started, which will likely put anyone into the obese category. I reached my heaviest weight about 20 years ago, actually. It hasn't been a constant upwards journey for me. I weigh myself regularly, and know that my weight can fluctuate by a couple of pounds in a day. I know that includes water and waste etc, but it's interesting nonetheless.

As far as health goes, what a lot of people seem to miss is that it is a continuum, not an absolute state. Most people have some health problems, and some people need daily medication to maintain their health at a reasonable level. I'm lucky in that I don't. As a cancer survivor, I have my health indicators measured on a fairly regular basis, and they are good. I don't have problems with blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol etc. I could stand to take more exercise, but my basic exercise levels are reasonably good, because I walk a lot in my daily life, I don't have a car. I have occasional back problems, and achy knees sometimes (partly due to an accident years ago, and my history as an archeologist, but I'm sure exacerbated by the weight). I'm not unconcerned with my health, and I am taking active steps to improve it (including losing weight).

Part of the reason I am able to lose weight is because I'm happy and confident in the rest of my life. My friends love me and accept me, and my 'weight' is not an issue. I am NOT fat harpy, I'm smart harpy, I'm harpy who is funny and sometimes outrageous, I'm harpy who 'knows everything' (said in an amused and awed way), I'm harpy who will help you out if she is able, I'm harpy who is a good cook. I am not defined by my weight, and I never will be. But my weight is not anything to be ashamed of, either. The things I am ashamed of is when I let people down, or when I don't live up to my standards for myself. The rest of me, I'm quite proud of.

I have so much to learn from each of you!

Catalinavanilla, I know at least Eve_L and wimsey, and probably the other people posting about hate mail have received it here. So have I. Funnily enough, I've never gotten comments in person.

I'm not just ashamed of my body, I'm at high risk for health problems. Type II diabetes runs in my family. Everyone who is significantly fat in my family has it. If you want to tell me there is no link between being fat and getting diabetes, go right ahead. I also have joint problems, and the more I weigh, the worse it is for my already bad joints.

Two things have kept me on my current "diet," and that's being ashamed of my body and fear of developing health complications. If one more person tells me that my body is fine the way it is, I will probably punch them in the face.

It is defending the obesity paradox, where people who are obese have higher survival rates for chronic diseases, like heart disease. But this blog also claims that being obese has nothing at all to do with heart disease. Hmmm. Sure. People who are obese have much higher rates of chronic diseases. They may be more likely to survive a heart attack, but they're also much more likely to have a heart attack.

I really DO think people need to be much, much more accepting of their bodies and themselves and all that, but I really think that you linked to a few things with some shady science.

Yeah I know I usually disagree with EVERYTHING you say!

...got depressed... or just don't have the time or money to exercise because they're poor and working for food and shelter is more important than running 5 miles a day.

I think this in particular is important. When people are dealing with problems in other areas of their life their health often suffers. Paris Hilton is an "ideal" form not because she possesses IRON WILL, (pffffft) but because she hasn't a care in the world to sap her energy and foul her mood. The last thing people need when they're dealing with stress is more stress in the form of abuse.

When the fat haters start kicking people while they're down, they know intuitively it's to cause harm and, hopefully, keep people inferior even as they claim it's "for their own good" to convince themselves they aren't acting like petty shitbags.

Also, in case some one didn't say it, BMI isn't intended to be one size fits all. It's specifically noted it isn't intended for atheletes since muscle throws the numbers.

I think atropa's main point was that it's really not that simple. Fat is not necessarily equal to unhealthy (I come from tall, heavy peasant stock myself. My grandparents lived into their 90's, and we have no family history of heart disease or diabetes). Lots of thin people are unhealthy. In the end, what we should all be striving for is the best possible health, while accepting that we're okay the way we are now.

I'm glad shaming works for you. All it does is piss me off. I can like how I look now, and still strive to live a healthier life as best I can, and telling me I'm ugly isn't going to be productive any way. All it does is make me think less of you.

And, in the end, fat-shamers know nothing about my life, my health problems, and my challenges, unless they read my journal. Which they wouldn't, because they automatically think I'm unworthy of their time and energy because I'm overweight.

It's only shaming myself that works. It's awful for people to go around calling people "fatty boombalatties", and I do think the media influence both women and men, contributing to unrealistic perceptions of normality. No one ever calls me fat (I've hidden my weight very well, though I've gone up in pant-sizes rapidly), but if they did, I'd be upset in some way.

I want to stress that I was NOT advocating shaming people into losing weight.

And to add to what bronzy said, there all also a lot of people out there who are obese because they have a combination of low incomes and little access to healthy food, often coupled with poor nutrition education. They aren't making excuses, they're more like victims of multiple circumstances.

And there also needs to be a distinction made here between fat and obese. Or maybe "chubby' and obese, or something. Besides the blogs that were linked to, I challenge anyone to find credible medical/scientific evidence that being OBESE or beyond is not unhealthy.

And being mega-obese has got to be just awful, even without having to find any scientific evidence. I can't for the life of me imagine that being 5'10" and 300 lbs doesn't mean you're not healthy.

I miss not being able to Fence, Take Tai Chi, Ivengyar (sp) yoga, and Judo. But I do enjoy these other classes. We have a common bond. We want to get better and stronger. We don't want to have a pity party about our pain and blame our weight gain on our injury. There are ex atheletes, Senior Citizens, Ice Skaters, all kinds of people in my classes.

At 26 I started a new medication. I was 5-7 and had a waist size of 22. I was curvy but thin. The medication made me so sedated I was too tired to do anything. I went from Fencing and training 6 days a week to sleeping most of the time. I gained 50 pounds

Then I moved to SF to go to school. I walked everywhere. I took Public Transit too, but more walking than anything else. Up steep hills. I walked probably 2-3 miles a day, maybe more. And I lost all that weight.

I am still not at the ideal weight I would like to be (I did put on my honeymoon 25 ;). But I am working on it. Instead of turning my injury into an excuse, I am trying to defy it.

I guess some people's opinion of being the best they can be has absolutely no physical quantifiers, but for myself I would be seriously disappointed if I was so unhealthy that I couldn't play tag with my friends' kids in the park, or go kayaking when my roommate invites me out with her, or go hiking in the Rockies to see the beauty of places you can't drive to.

Decide, commit, succeed, every single day, each day, as if it was the first time.

My dear friend and hairdresser had breast cancer and in turn, had a mastectomy. They told her she could never lift her arm past her shoulder. She was having none of that. Now she can bench press over 50 pounds. That's pretty damn good.

A healthy diet and exercise didn't work (ldo) so I starved myself. I intentionally went on week-long drug binges so that I wouldn't be hungry or notice if I was. Every time I looked in the mirror, I hated what I saw. And really, I was fucking grotesque-looking.

I don't know what my point is, other than I know what it's like to have this enormous social pressure to look a certain way, and to internalize that pressure, and still not be able to fix it, for whatever reason. Sucks.

Net negative calories. Either eat a LOT less, exercise a LOT more, or (ideally) a moderate blend of the two. I have gone down 3 sizes since then, and will probably squeak out one more if I keep up the exercise routine I am on.

I know you're a huge advocate of just getting up and DOING the exercise because you're like me, you're stubborn and driven. What I don't understand is people who realize they should eat less/exercise more to lose weight, want to lose weight, and yet change nothing.

...and this is the big/only problem I have with social pressure to lose weight. If a healthy diet and exercise aren't helping you to lose weight, this should NOT be something that spurs people into bulimia in order to fit a specific mold. It should be a red flag that you need to contact your doctor to either a) see what is wrong with your strategy or b) see what is wrong with you, because if diet/exercise don't work, then it is because one of those two things is broken.

It makes me sad that people are feeling pressure to lose weight because of aesthetics (my personal opinions on beauty aside). They should be wanting to lose weight because of how good their body will feel when it is able to do aerobic and anaerobic activity with ease, when there is less stress on joints, etc...

I cannot, and will not, speak for anyone else. I do think there are often complicated factors that go into weight gain, including not only the things that onehalfspin mentioned, but also things like a suburban sprawl-based society where everyone spends far too many hours a day in their cars, a culture obsessed with the scheduling of children's lives, which leads to a lot of parents who spend their lives chauffeuring around their children, and many other things.

That said, I have no such excuse. I am trying to exercise more, for my own personal health. Not because I think I am not attractive and sexy, but because I know it's the right thing to do in my continued quest to be a better person. But it's a very complicated psychological issue for someone who's had lifelong health problems that are often aggravated further by exercise, and who has dealt with a lot of psychological abuse on the subject of exercise.

If anyone is actually interested in some frank journal entries about my struggle with this issue, they are here:

My medical issues: http://tinyurl.com/5f783k

My struggle with exercise: http://tinyurl.com/65dpsp

Just one person's viewpoint.

For example, in England it is AGAINST THE LAW for a company to advertise sugary, unhealthy food on shows targeted to young children. The USA is so in the pocket of the corporate interests that the government by-and-large wants nothing to do with getting involved in advocating for the health of the citizenry when it comes into conflict with the big corporate food interests, for example. During the Bush regime, they have undertaken all sorts of actions to undermine the legitimate health interests of the citizenry, including pre-empting an excellent standard for organic food in California with a crappier federal standard that, among other things, allows producers to call their products "organic" even though they've been irradiated, and if I'm not mistaken, genetically-engineered. We also have a federal labeling standard for trans-fats which is the weakest in the world, whereby a company can claim "0 grams trans fat per serving" even though there are very measureable amounts which if one had 2-3 servings it could easily reach harmful levels. Examples of this sort of thing abound.

The vast majority of haters that sit around in places like OkCupid and browbeat heavy people trying to make them feel bad have absolutely no history, background or credentials when it comes to advocating for public health issues. They are basically bullies, plain-and-simple. They get away with it because fat people are the new "niggers". Once upon a time people wouldn't stand up to defend and African-American from abuse from whites, today much the same holds true for fat people.

As wimsey said, you don't motivate human-beings by abusing them day in and day out. If the haters had any real compassion for people, rather than simply wanting to bully them, they would show a tiny iota of compassion for a person's individual challenges, rather than simply sitting there spending inordinate amounts of time shooting off their mouth trying to make people miserable. (The sick corollary of this is that there is another category of person that they are really speaking to here - the ones who will publicly or privately applaud them for this. I'm convinced that to some extent they are attempting to ingratiate themselves with this crowd, the ones who publicly or privately say "fat people are lazy, gross jerks who don't deserve to breathe air".)

I just find that the ultimate in hypocrisy.

As for fat = cardiovascularly unfit, that's about as solid as the abortion= increased risk of breast cancer connection. As the study linked to in the post shows, cardiovascular fitness is correlated with life expectancy, not body fat percentage. If you have a problem with that study, take it up with JAMA. If anyone has a more recent article that refutes the JAMA article, please feel free to link to it. Your common sense say-so doesn't count. Oh, and cholesterol and other lipid levels in blood serum are a result of liver function, which can be affected by drug use, stress, recent alcohol use, medications, and genetic variance of enzyme function, among other things.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/116277.php

This link is far more interesting as to costs on the healthcare system. While I agree that fit is what's important, I also know that most overweight/obese people are not fit, period. There are exceptions, but they are generally not the rule. I don't care what someone does with their life, it is their life, but I don't think highly of someone who complains about their weight and does nothing as I think that's disingenuous. I completely respect someone who says I'm ok with myself and I'll do what I need to and does just that.

For example, there are lots of people in way over their head financially in the USA. How easy it would be to start singling out everyone who had a bunch of credit cards maxxed out and say "You're such a loser, just pay off your debts and make more money, you lazy ass!".

The reason why you can't easily do the same random criticism of debtors is because people don't carry around a big sign attached to their body that says "I'm $50,000 in debt on my credit cards" or "I defaulted on my car loan". But fat people do carry evidence of their particular challenge around for everyone to see, which makes them a much easier target for sanctimonious jerkoffs.

I fail to see why it is bad to look down on people for shit like this. If you only make $30k a year, but you spend $40k a year, that is undisciplined and not an intelligent choice. I live my life without credit cards at all, and I paid off my student loan yesterday (yay!) without any financial aid from outside sources. In my opinion, people are too quick to blame circumstances "beyond their control" for almost everything.

I also know that most overweight/obese people are not fit, period. There are exceptions, but they are generally not the rule.

Exactly. It is entirely possible that a severely overweight person might have a higher level of cardiovascular health than I do, but it is not likely and probably not common. I would be willing to compete in a foot race with 10 people who are seriously overweight and I would be incredibly surprised if more than one of them beat me.

Actually I find it quite interesting that some body types can stay heavier while doing more exercise and eating better than others who live on processed foods and the couch. Just food for thought. Should these body types push themselves beyond a healthy range so as to achieve the thinness our society deems desirable? I guess that all depends on who you ask.

I would be willing to compete in a three-way foot race with any living overfat (man w/ > 25% bodyfat, woman with > 30% bodyfat) human in the world and a hungry, angry bear. Which is to say, I am more than willing to bet my life that it will not be me who gets eaten.

The reason being that I am at 6% body fat, and can maintain a 15mph pace a hell of a lot longer than a grizzly can, and am also considerably faster than both the bear and the fatty when running downhill - because they are fat/hunchbacked. (Yes, I have thought this through carefully. Is there some other way to spend a Saturday morning?)

Excuses are lovely, but they will not help you survive in the wild.

This is not your soapbox to hear yourself think. That's your own journal. No more comments from journal regulars, please. If you avoided commenting here in january, you should stick with that instinct and keep avoiding it now.

Secondly:

Maybe you could beat 9/10 bronz, but that doesn't mean the average, lazy, malnourished shinny kid is going to do as well as that.

I thought we were talking about the average "fit" person vs. the average "fat" person, for the sake of comparison? I would have to go do more research but think the number of people who are seriously underweight is pretty small in proportion to the population.

Actually I find it quite interesting that some body types can stay heavier while doing more exercise and eating better than others who live on processed foods and the couch. Just food for thought. Should these body types push themselves beyond a healthy range so as to achieve the thinness our society deems desirable?

What makes you think it would take exercise/diet beyond a healthy range to maintain a lower weight? A slower metabolism is not a dead metabolism.

If you avoided commenting here in january, you should stick with that instinct and keep avoiding it now.

Generally I avoid these types of posts. I find that unless a commenter's viewpoint is the same as yours atropa, even if the argument is phrased carefully and researched, the person ends up being labeled as a troll and a fatty-hater. That is simply not the case, but it seems that it is far too easy to pigeonhole people in this way.

And MissN emailed me an article on yahoo back on the 12th http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080812/ap_on_he_me/med_healthy_obesity which refers to this article published in the Archives of Internal Medicine http://tinyurl.com/6z9emh

That article states that basically, 23% of adults over 20 with a "normal" BMI had cardiac risk factors, 50% of adults with a BMI in the "overweight" category were very healthy from a cardiovascular perspective, along with ~31% of adults with a BMI falling under "obese."