Strange statistics

[Tim Elsky]

Just read an article:
Atlantic Canada has some of the worst Canadian obesity rates and contains the two cities which are home to Canada’s fattest people. In first place for fatties is St. John’s with a rate of 36.40 per cent obese. It is followed by the similarly named Saint John with similarly fatty statistics at 34.70 per cent obese.

Was St. John food lover or something?
And where do ppl get an idea to make that kind of statistics, I mean how do they get the results - go around and ask for ppl weight?

[ChrisHunter]

It's alright the English goverment seem to come out with daft statistics all the time which are a bit of a waste of money and time and sound like something you'd do in high school

[jwenting]

Statistical analysis shows 90% of all statistics are flawed.

[WaltP]

If at first you don't succeed, do a statistical analysis to correct the results.

[Tim Elsky]

If at first you don't succeed, do a statistical analysis to correct the results.

Well the point is not about how correct or incorrect this statistics results are, but about the topic of statistics. I mean some of those "fatties" may be offended by that kind of "research"

[jwenting]

overweight people are far more offended by being called "fatties" and ridiculed when the vast majority of them aren't overweight by choice but because of medical conditions made worse by the diet industry and completely ignored by medical professionals.

In fact, if you're overweight many doctors won't take any condition you have seriously, you'll be told (and I know that from personal experience) that if you just were to eat less you will be cured of whatever is ailing you.
Never mind that many overweight people are already eating far less than most of those same doctors in attempts to prevent gaining more weight.
And most diets only make things worse, especially the low fat, high carbohydrate diet that's hailed as the ideal "food pyramid", never mind the plethora of "weight loss diets" that cause your metabolism to crash so you gain a lot of weight as soon as you're forced to abandon them when they've completely screwed up your body chemistry.

And oh, "obesity rates" of 34% are blatantly ridiculous. Such numbers only show how overused the qualifier "obese" has become.
Look around you, is a full third of the people you see on an average city street over an average day so fat they can hardly walk let alone stand up?
Of course not, but the qualifier "obese" is now placed on anyone who's more than marginally over the "ideal BMI" (itself a hoax) which is regularly adjusted downward to the point where now anyone who's not anorexic is considered overweight.

[ChrisHunter]

BMI is the BMI at which your body can function at its best, being over weight might not be the ONLY reason over weight people contract some illnesses but it IS reason why over weight people oftern have issues breathing and walking, plus over weight people are more prone to diabetes than those who arn't over weight.

i feel sorry for some over weight people who want to loose weight but their medical conditions means they can't but not for those who are able but don't bother and moan about it

Dieting alone is isn't the key as jwenting said, once you stop the diets you put it all back on, a mix of diet and exercise is key not surgery, just put some effort into it.

How ever useless statistic On average, there are 178 sesame seeds on each McDonalds BigMac bun.

[jwenting]

no Chris, the "perfect" BMI is a political construct. In reality it's highly dependent on the individual what his or her "perfect" weight is.
For one thing it's age dependent, something not reflected in BMI calculations (and as a result kids are often malnourished now to the point of starvation because of diet obsessions held by schools, doctors, and parents alike to get them to that holy grail of the government dictated "perfect BMI" (this is especially atrocious in the UK where kids are taken from their parents if parents fail to achieve this, and placed in foster care, the parents being charged with child abuse).
Diabetes is not caused by being overweight, contrary to popular myth. Both are caused by the same root reason, an unstable blood sugar level and overall metabolism caused by a diet way too high in processed carbohydrates (the exact same diet promoted by government health departments, dieticians, and doctors alike).

And it's not "some" overweight people, it's a majority.

What people fail to understand is that there's no "one size fits all" for body shape and size, nor is there for diet.
For example: You might be able to eat 5 cheeseburgers with fries and large sodas a day and not gain a gram of weight, when I have only one I can gain 2-3 pounds even though that meal only has about half a pound of digestible nutrients in it.

[Tim Elsky]

As jwenting said.

There are many diseases that make people gain weight, not the other way around. Also there are some medical components that make people gain weight.
Besides if person is over weight for more then 20 kilo there will be danger to their life (like many have breathing problems, heart problems and so on) and every person needs individual diet and sport program depending on their inner system (different ppl process food diferently) and health condition (you can't make a person with weak heart to marathon - they'll have heart attack.
I think before making that kind of statistics one should think about making more special health programs (and not those we see on TV when they make people exercise till they drop dead)

[ChrisHunter]

my apologies there is no perfect BMI and it is age dependent along with many other factors.

however when you say "Diabetes is not caused by being overweight, contrary to popular myth. Both are caused by the same root reason, an unstable blood sugar level and overall metabolism caused by a diet way too high in processed carbohydrates" is the bodies matabolism not slowed by lack of exercise and healthy diet ?, and over weight people are often (NOT ALWAYS) due to consuming too much of the above (which you say are the main factors in contracting diabetes).

Personally if i get to a size which makes walking up a small set of stairs tiring and you have to buy a seat for each bum cheek on a planeexcess i'll be walking up a few more stairs and seeing a diet consultent.

However i think Tim is a happy medium and we all have our own opinions, mine is that if you want to loose weight and you are able to do so then just do it and i'm sorry if i have anniod you with this it is a touchy subject for many people.

on a lighter note and keeping with the thread subject Odds of being killed by freezing - 1 in 3 million.

[Agilemind]

"And where do ppl get an idea to make that kind of statistics,"
That is actually a very useful statistics since obesity is linked to many other diseases which put together cost the Canadian Health Care system millions of dollars. If tracked overtime it can be used to predict future health care costs and monitor the success of various programs designed to combat the problem. Regional differences can also be used to try and identify environmental factors that affect the condition.

"I mean how do they get the results - go around and ask for ppl weight?"
Either through surveys and ask people their weight, alternatively use data from doctors and various medical studies.

Obesity is a problem, poor diet is definitely a contributing factor (I don't know which gov't has been promoting a carb rich diet but Canada emphasizes you need equal or more servings of fruits and vegetables than carbs). And processed sugar is one of the major contributing factors to diabetes not necessarily all carbs.

[jwenting]

Obesity is a problem, poor diet is definitely a contributing factor (I don't know which gov't has been promoting a carb rich diet but Canada emphasizes you need equal or more servings of fruits and vegetables than carbs). And processed sugar is one of the major contributing factors to diabetes not necessarily all carbs.

all western governments promote a carb rich diet.
Just look at the "food pyramid" and similar things put out by health departments across the Americas and Europe.
They push a diet that's something like 80-90% carb laden bread, pasta, fruit, vegetables, and rice.
If you consider that an average person eats about 1-2 kilos of food stuff a day (depending on activity, dietary choices, etc.), if he follows government guidelines he'll be consuming about 700-1500 grams of carbohydrates a day.
Part of that is dietary fiber, a good thing, but the vast majority will be in sugars and starch (and starch is readily converted to sugar inside the body).

It is no surprise that body weight in north America and Europe rapidly went up after WW2.
WW2 (starting before during the depression) saw massive campaigns to increase wheat production in the US (and later Europe after WW2, where under the Marshall plan similar programs were set up), fueled by heavy government subsidies to provide cheap food for the masses as well as the troops.
After WW2 this was pushed in Europe under the idea of a "never again" solution to the famines of 1943 and '44.
But there was a problem, the production was so high the free market couldn't absorb it. So promotion programs were set up to get people to eat more bread, pasta, pastries, etc., centered around how healthy those foods are.
That started the "obesity crisis", which only got worse as people gained ever more sedentary lifestyles (thus less physical activity) as well as more eager access year round to imported fruit and vegetables, heavy in sugars (previously, fruit was only available shortly after harvest season, and expensive enough most people couldn't afford it or only in very limited supply, certainly not the 200 grams of fruit a day currently promoted as the absolute minimum for healthy living here).

As to "just exercise", thanks but no thanks. I didn't even start to gain weight until I seriously damaged my knees in a traffic accident (and later my back as well), and can no longer exercise.
2 miles on a bike or half a lap in the swimming pool and I'm in enough pain that I can't do anything except lie in bed for several days.
Hiking I can some days keep up for an hour, maybe 2, but that's it. Running is out of the question.
The same is true for many people.

"Just eat less"? I've been told that by colleagues who I see eating 2-3 times my total daily diet just for lunch.

[ChrisHunter]

I didn't even start to gain weight until I seriously damaged my knees in a traffic accident (and later my back as well), and can no longer exercise. 2 miles on a bike or half a lap in the swimming pool and I'm in enough pain that I can't do anything except lie in bed for several days. Hiking I can some days keep up for an hour, maybe 2, but that's it. Running is out of the question. The same is true for many people.

see i thought i said if your able to exercise and don't (which means if you don't have an ill ness or bad knees or back like yourself) which means excludes yourself.

i also have bad knees and have done since i was 16 when i hit the side of a car at 30mph and when over the top of it, i was always active before that and at 22 still am and am still trying to get something done about my knees but I'm still only 12st 11. when my knees feel alright at times i try playing squash but usually twist my knee or it starts to hurt when i walk but i make sure i climb every week.

Oh and my brother always gets told to eat more fruit and veg by his doctor because he's anemic

the point is there are people who are over weight due to illness or disability and there are people who are so because they are just lazy, i'm neither and wouldn't mind trading knees with an over weight person with good knees if anyone fancies it ?

again keeping with the thread subject:

The Earth's revolution time increases .0001 seconds annually

[vegaseat]

It's darn cold up there! When it is cold people eat more.

[Agilemind]

Since civilization moved to agriculture and away from hunter-gatherer we have had carb rich diets (because they are relatively unperishable compared to vegetables) and if you include fibre in "carbs" we have had carb rich diets since we evolved from monkeys except for the few people who live in the arctic where plants don't grow so they must rely on mostly meat.

Most people a few centuries ago ate almost 100% carbs because they were too poor to afford anything else (Lived on bread and water). Much of China still subsists on rice and south/central America the equivalent is plantains which are also carb rich. Although they also have to do a lot of physical labour/exercise and often cannot afford enough food to fill them up.

Although I 100% agree that the influx of cheap sugar has been recent and has lead to the rise in type 2 diabetes.

Another weird statistic:

Of the 100 largest "economies" in the world, 53 are giant corporations. The other 47 are nation states.