10mo ago

Overweight people more likely to take sick leave, European study finds

www.theguardian.com Overweight people more likely to take sick leave, European study finds

Economic impact laid bare by findings has implications for UK where about two-thirds of people are overweight or obese

Economic impact laid bare by findings has implications for UK where about two-thirds of people are overweight or obese

Archived version: https://archive.ph/H65uz

31 comments

People with underlying health issues more likely to run into health problems. Amazing journalism.
- Well, with respect to everyone, there's a group of folks who believe in "health at any weight". That's an issue
  
  So the movement you’re referring to is “health at every size” and various studies have shown that following it leads to overall better physical health outcomes compared to “traditional” weight loss/dieting. Here’s a short article with links to various studies: https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/health-every-size/#
  The movement isn’t promoting that everyone is healthy at every size but that weight and health may not be causal as people seem to believe (research shows they can be correlated but the methods behind it have also been quite flawed and do not consider a vast majority of covariates that have been previously identifed as having negative relationships with health). Unfortunately, we live in a society (mostly US but also all Western nations) that pushes the idea that only one body type is “healthy” and that our body shape/type is largely within out control and neither of those are previous statements are true. In fact, these ideals have been shown to be negatively correlated with physical and mental health and can be a major contribution to disordered eating and associated symptoms/behaviors.
- Like spam emails, it worked. People have likely clicked, and here we are talking about it. As long as it continues to work, they will remain in business... :-(
  What bugs me about it is that it's The Guardian, from which I tend to expect better. Therefore, I went ahead and clicked it, and am tremendously relieved to see that mostly it's just an overly simplistic title - it would have read much better as something along the lines of "measuring the economic impacts of obesity" imho - though the article itself is still somewhat slim.
  Globally the costs of overweight and obesity are expected to soar from $1.96tn in 2020 to $4.32tn by 2035, according to the World Obesity Atlas published last year.

The way I see it, us non-overweight people need to get a better work life balance and take more sick leave!

Because the obesity and their bad health likely has a single cause. Whether it's neglect, bad mental health or something else, it all increases the likelihood of obesity and being otherwise unhealthy. This headline seems to paint the fat people as leeches of the system, while they are often already sick and obesity just one of their symptoms.
- Conflating fat people with bad people is pretty standard fare unfortunately.
  I’ve struggled with my weight my entire life; I have a long history of being physically active while also being overweight. For example: I have a black belt in martial arts, which means I spent a decade of my life in a dojo three to five times a week exercising… while still fat. I don’t eat terribly either. My body just holds onto every fucking calorie.
  But many many people have made shitty assumptions about me based entirely on my weight. The “personal responsibility” people are particularly obnoxious.
  I was a kid in the 90s when every TV show had a stupid lazy fat guy as a cheap joke factory. That was super cool for my self esteem.
  
  Taking BMI as gospel is another problem, to be considered in an ideal weight, I'd have to weigh as much as when I was 17 and that was when I was the most active in my whole life (walking to and from school, PE at school, going outside with friends daily, etc.) No chance I can cut to that weight at 35 in a healthy way.
- It is my opinion this article is a symptom of the current culture that being fat is some sort of moral failing. The fact that they can tie it to some vaguely tangible monetary cost is the justification.
  
  Also what if someone wants to be fat? "No, you're not allowed to look how you want to look. You have to change your appearance to fit in because uhhhhhh you need to go produce more labour value for Capital.
  Fuck that shit. It's fashy as hell. Also transphobic vibes tbh.

31 comments