‘But what the trolls don't realize—or they do and are too lazy to care—is that Gordon has built a career of debunking all the "proof" they offer to support their claims. If only they read one of her books or listened to her brilliant, hilarious podcast, Maintenance Phase, which she cohosts with Michael Hobbes, would they realize they've been tricked into believing dangerous, hateful lies for generations in part so the weight loss industry can continue raking in billions of dollars every year.’

I’ll reiterate here what I repeatedly wrote in that comment thread: I do not understand the Stranger’s insistence on normalizing unhealthy behaviors. Persons with medical problems need medical treatments, not false assurances that everything would be a-ok if they just remain in denial. Do you really believe there is no link between obesity and heart disease, or a host of other medical problems?

In your excoriation of the “trolls” in that comment thread, you somehow forgot to mention the only citation to actual medical research, which I’ll put again here.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23455838/#:~:text=Whole%20blood%20viscosity%20significantly%20increases,vs%203.29%20±%200.09%20mPa.

“This study shows that fatness by its own is associated with increased red cell aggregation, that abdominal fat increases blood viscosity due to a rise in hematocrit, and that overall body size as assessed with the BMI is associated with increased plasma viscosity and red cell rigidity.”

In simple terms, obesity makes the blood thicker, putting more strain on the heart. Does that sound healthy?

@1 there is a follow up to the weak ass study that augments its conclusions. obesity does not make blood thicker. that study was weak and small and simplistic (like you) and basically retracted later by its authors; specifically its conclusion that abdominal fat increases hematocrit (it doesnt). If you had read more than the abstract your link has and looked at the follow ups to study and reviewed its data you would know that it is is trash. Also even if the study was a good one all it would be saying is that some fat people have a higher risk to form blood clots but it does not at all prove that fatness is causative to this issue. But you would have to be more than a loser pseudo intellectual troll on a stupid free alt weekly to be able to sort that out.

what i dont understand mister health nut is why do you come here? do you think this unhealthy habit you have of trolling on the Stranger somehow increases your health? You dont even know or accept that you are a "troll"?

being super fat and sedentary is unhealthy. but so is stressing out about trying to broadcast your stupid purile opinions on a place where every one either agrees with you already or is laughing at you, not with.

@2: It’s not like there’s any real scientific debate over whether chronic obesity creates a host of health risks. Your quibbling about the details would look silly even if you could someday get one of them right. (At least you’re not ranting about decades of lies by the weight-loss industry. Yet.)

The Stranger’s obsession with normalizing clearly unhealthy behaviors doesn’t help anything in Seattle, either. Maybe that little problem might concern you more than your personal obsession with name-calling anyone who gets the better of you in an argument? That’s an awful lot of names to call, don’t you think? Of course not.

(Why is it persons who disagree with you and the headline poster here can provide citations, but all you two can do in return is call names? Doesn’t that pattern begin to suggest something to you?)

Because you could find the follow up article that retracts the findings of the one you posted on the link you provided. It’s attached to the bottom of the abstract.

Of course being super fat isn’t good for general health. But what’s more stressing out and dieting constantly are worse than fat people just focusing on being the healthiest they can be. You don’t care about people being healthy. You just care about trying to sound informed and “being right” and in doing so are allied with people who think that being fat makes your blood thicker and that fat people will all die in their 60s both of which are fucking stupid statements.

The stranger staff sell an ideology of mind your own fucking business and not everything is as simple as morons like you think.

Why do you care to push your narrow perspective and represent yourself as some authority on health and wellness when you surely are just some other rando loser who spends too much time trying to be right on some stupid comment board? Hardly a paragon of healthy behavior that is.

@2, @4: If the follow-up study you’re not citing is, “Are overall adiposity and abdominal adiposity separate or redundant determinants of blood viscosity?” (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25062715/) then no, it does not in any way refute obesity causing thicker blood. Specifically, “…abdominal fatness expressed by WC [waist circumference] and whole body adiposity remain independent determinants of blood viscosity.”

Again, you’re quibbling over details. Contrary to the opinion repeatedly promoted here by the Stranger, obesity is unhealthy, and no amount of denial will change that:

“Obesity is serious because it is associated with poorer mental health outcomes and reduced quality of life. In the United States and worldwide, obesity is also associated with the leading causes of death, including deaths from diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and some types of cancer.”

(https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/basics/index.html)

“The stranger staff sell an ideology of mind your own fucking business…”

Actually, they’ve advocated for not prosecuting theft and assault, and “beat and rob innocent persons with impunity” is pretty much the opposite of “mind your own business.” But given your apparent inability to disagree with becoming verbally abusive, I can understand how the Stranger’s policy of loudly advocating for unhealthy behaviors — and attacking anyone who dares to recognize these behaviors as unhealthy — appeals deeply to you.