About 1/3 of Canadians are now obese. Researchers saw a steeper increase during the pandemic
About 1/3 of Canadians are now obese. Researchers saw a steeper increase during the pandemic
15 comments
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Makes sense to me. I was at my most sedentary during the pandemic. That sedentariness kind of became a new normal. I'm still trying to change that
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Yep became normal and is hard to break.
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Makes sense to me. I was at my most sedentary during the pandemic.
Interestingly, some people, for the first time, got fit during the pandemic. There was a massive bike boom, people were out walking and hiking again, they invested in cooking at home, relaxation, better quality sleep, etc.
It's a shame that so many went backwards, though.
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To study this, Anderson and her team looked at the most recent self-reported body mass index (BMI) data from 746,250 Canadians who were 18 years or older between 2009 and 2023.
Maybe because BMI was never intended to be an indicator of health and is just a simple and dirty math formula invented by a Belgian astronomer 200 years ago?
https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/publications/health-matters/is-bmi-accurate
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-02/the-problem-with-the-body-mass-index-bmi/100728416
BMI is just weight and height, a pound of muscle, a pound of fat, a pound of bone...
Doesn't matter, a pound is a pound.
I failed BMI everytime I got measured in the military, they had to "rope and choke" which is a more time consuming method where waist/neck measurements were used. If I had still failed that, I'd have been given a buoyancy test as well for an even more accurate tests.
But it's hard to call someone obese after you just measured the circumference of their abs...
When used as an average of a population BMI isbetter but it was made based on what weights were considered healthy for a white man 200 years ago, way before protein and weight training. And when the average person was like 5'6.
Lots of clearly healthy white men are labeled obese because of that. And no one else was even involved in coming up with the system, so they've always been getting wrong results.
It's fucking insane we're still using this ancient flawed method when we have so many better ways. Especially since the largest determiner of height back then was access to enough calories when young. Pretty much everyone is getting that now. And reaching their max height which is where BMI has always been the most flawed.
Like, obesity is an undeniable problem. But BMI is the least scientific metric we could be using short of some bullshit like astrology signs. The obesity epidemic too serious to fuck around like this
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BMI isn't a valid indicator of health for (young) people with lots of muscle mass from weight training (e.g., competitive athletes). Those people are a relatively small group in society, however. BMI is a somewhat valid indicator of health for most members of society, which makes it a reasonable population health metric. It has its drawbacks and there's plenty of nuances to argue about but it's very easy to use, and that handiness earns it its popularity
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You are being downvoted, but you are correct.
BMI on it's own isn't a good metric. Waist measurement (i.e. measuring visceral fat around the gut) is a far better measure of health, and when used with BMI, you get a far more accurate picture of health than one over the other.
This is why you can have someone at a "healthy" BMI, but they are fat in the belly (and nowhere else!). Their health is a great risk, despite being a healthy weight and BMI.
I noticed my scale going up as I trained more for cycling, despite my body fat dropping). It's muscle weight, despite my BMI now being "worse" than when I was lighter with less muscle.
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BMI does work very well in diagnostics and statistical models, which is useful and trends to work better than separating the in inputs.
But I do agree it's not some magic be all measure.
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BMI does work very well in diagnostics and statistical models
It does not ...
It barely worked when it was created and doesn't really mean shit now.
It's gives loads of people a false sense of security and then they latch onto it and just keep insisting it's fine even in the face of multiple sources that show the scientific community thinks its shit.
I guess if people needed an example of that, your comment did serve a purpose.
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I'm curious why you think there's an obesity epidemic if BMI as bad as you claim. Surely this means the problem is blown way out of proportion and the obesity rates are actually much lower?
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15 comments
Oooof, was hopping we would not import this American tradition as well
...sorry, it was a long pandemic isolation 😅