Is it healthier to be 2 stone overweight or drink half a bottle of wine a day?

[SodYouIllGoOnMyOwn]

Just seeking some views here and it’s a bit controversial so I opted for AIBU. Obviously neither is ideal but from a health perspective, what do you think?

Not unreasonable: Half a bottle of wine is worse.
Unreasonable: 2 stone overweight is worse.

Really interested to hear some views.

Thanks.

Where were these articles?

That sounds a load of unadulterated bollocks. Smoking is by some measure one of the worst things you can do to your body: it damages almost every organ. If there were marginal benefits of being slim they would be completely undermined by smoking.

It certainly doesn't sound right. If it is aw should be encouraging smoking rather than discouraging it as it's a powerful appetite suppressant.

Are you thinking of the fact that now smoking is so reduced overall that obesity kills more people than smoking does? That sounds very plausible.

No, the claim was that thin smokers are healthier than obese non smokers. It was at least a decade ago.

Half a bottle is not going to have the consequences you mention. A person is not drunk after a few glasses like that and driving not relevant for quite a few people. It's also not a sign of alcoholism as some people are arguing here. An alcoholic is someone who needs to drink and will have physical symptoms if they stop, not someone who has a few glasses a day.

Actually, this is not true. The liver suffers immensely in obese people.

Might be true for young people?
Lung cancer and COPD etc. tend to develop later.

The liver suffers in slim people who eat an unhealthy diet. You don't have to be even overweight to had NAFLD. Overweight is not obese. And the liver definitely suffers from daily drinking.

Not as much as when ravaged by a continuous supply of alcohol. And obesity is only one of a number of predispositions to non alcoholic fatty liver disease.

You're at an increased risk of NAFLD if you:

• are obese or overweight – particularly if you have a lot of fat around your waist (an "apple-like" body shape)
• have type 2 diabetes
• have a condition that affects how your body uses insulin (insulin resistance), such as polycystic ovary syndrome
• have an underactive thyroid
• have high blood pressure
• have high cholesterol
• have metabolic syndrome (a combination of diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity)
• are over the age of 50
• smoke

But NAFLD has been diagnosed in people without any of these risk factors, including young children.

Source? The dangers of smoking have been widely known for decades. Whatever "claim" this was can't have been backed by credible science.

Again, so many variables involved here which could cause there to be outliers. I could see a scenario where an otherwise extremely healthy social smoker could potentially be healthier than a morbidly obese non smoker. Some elite sportspeople smoke, unbelievably. But all things being equal being a regular smoker would be worse for you than being overweight and I can't believe credible experts would endorse the idea that its better to be a smoker than be overweight.

What is allegedly true is that during the famine in North Korea in the 1990s doctors would sometimes advise people to start smoking cigarettes to deal with hunger. But a) starvation is a very extreme scenario which most of us will never face and b) the medical establishment in North Korea probably wasn't very sophisticated.

I think you are just here to defend your quaffing.

Actually, this is not true. The liver suffers immensely in obese people

It can do yes but two stone overweight is unlikely, on its own, to trigger liver disease.

Steady, regular moderate to heavy drinking is much more dangerous for the liver.

I think the drinking is worse for you too.

Oh and I mentioned being 2st overweight, this doesn't take I to account hip to weight ratio. If someone has a small hip to waist ratio, that's healthier.

Also the smoking study, what are the age ranges of this? If we're talking a snapshot of 30 year olds that's going to look quite different from over time. Also how obese and how heavy smokers?

I definitely stand by that weight and that level of booze tho

Insulin resistance and metabolic health are the two biggest threats to almost all markers of health. It's too much sugar in the blood, inflammation, and being sedentary that are the issues. How that sugar gets into the system, whether by alcohol, carbohydrates, processed foods, or directly from sugar (all forms of which are unhealthy and unnatural - ie we didn't consume them as humans until a few hundred years ago and so aren't metabolically disposed to them) is irrelevant. Eat less, drink less, don't consume much sugar. Simple really.

While it is a bit of a silly question, as the two things are both as bad as each other, I'd probably say that drinking a hb of wine every day is worse.

For the simple fact that it would suggest a drink problem, which could impact more on other people in their life in a way that being 2st overweight wouldn't.

I would say drinking half a bottle of wine every day with no days off is worse than being 2 stone overweight.

Traditional BMI guidelines are too generalised and don’t take into account ethnicity and muscle mass and are based simply on weight and height. There is also growing research that as you get into older age group of 65+ a slightly higher BMI is predictive of better health and lifespan so thinner is not always better.

Agree. On these threads there is a huge conflation of overweight and obese.

Plenty of research suggests overweight can actually have better health in many cases. The top end of healthy I believe was dropped lower, and, having been at the bottom end of “healthy” for decades with health issues that resolved when I gained a few kilos, I’m pretty confident that the bottom end of overweight can be healthier than bottom cutoff for “ healthy.” The bmi thing is fairly rough and ready,

@Calliopespa

Agree. On these threads there is a huge conflation of overweight and obese.
Plenty of research suggests overweight can actually have better health in many cases. The top end of healthy I believe was dropped lower, and, having been at the bottom end of “healthy” for decades with health issues that resolved when I gained a few kilos, I’m pretty confident that the bottom end of overweight can be healthier than bottom cutoff for “ healthy.” The bmi thing is fairly rough and ready,

Yep. I think also there is a particular type of mental trade-off which some women in particular who know they drink too much make in which they go: "oh it's fine because I'm really skinny, not putting on weight/I eat less so I can drink more".

I have a colleague who is both a functional alcoholic and is orthorexic and obsessively measures food out and stresses about calorie intake. She also vapes. She's always talking about how she doesn't want to risk putting on a few pounds because of the "risk to her heart and internal organs" but drinks most nights of the week.

Obviously its complex so I don't want to shame her, but I feel like screaming at her that she could afford to relax about her lunch a bit more if she just stopped drinking so much. It's delusional to think that being skinny offsets the damage from drinking too much but surprisingly common.

There are some ( not all) people who are very thin and actually look unhealthy. Their skin is sallow, their hair is brittle and limp. It’s clear they aren’t getting nutrients.

I totally agree: an egg on whole grain toast with a side of avocado would do them the world of good!

Your post is exactly why I think the whole body weight obsession can have some negative spin off healthwise.

I agree that being thin or even having a healthy BMI doesn't mean you're healthy. I remember a lady we knew during our childhood...she was thin. She would buy scones from the supermarket and freeze them...that's literally all she ate...she drunk endless cups of tea and smoked like a chimney. I'm a size 14-16...I'm definitely overweight probably obese technically....but I don't drink alcohol or smoke. I eat a varied diet. I suppose on paper she would be considered healthier than me....as my BMI is much much higher

Well no, because BMI is a blunt tool to give one indicator of health. No good health professional would simply look at 2 BMIs and declare the person within the healthy weight range to be in better health than the person within the unhealthy range.

BMI is indeed a very blunt tool and in fact the Lancet (the highly-respected peer-reviewed medical paper) recently came out with a recommendation that BMI is effectively meaningless without further context and shouldn't be relied upon as a metric for whether someone's weight is doing damage to their body. So many other variables involved in assessing health than weight/size.

Also quality of food is easily as important as volume. So a person who is technically somewhat overweight but eats a balanced diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables and also exercises is likely to be healthier than someone with a low BMI who drinks heavily and eat junk food.

But that’s what @Comedycook is saying. Yet on MN you’d be led to believe BMI is your place marker in the queue for the Grim Reaper - only in reverse. The lower the bmi, the further back in the queue.

Health just doesn’t work like that. I’m seeing so many friends who have been very anti diary ( mostly for weight reasons eg cheese!!) are getting osteoporosis.

@Calliopespa But that’s what is saying. Yet on MN you’d be led to believe BMI is your place marker in the queue for the Grim Reaper - only in reverse. The lower the bmi, the further back in the queue.

A lot of people on MN have orthorexia/borderline anorexia. The threads about "is this too much food" that pop up regularly on here are sometimes pretty disturbing.

The glee that people exhibit in telling other people they are eating too many calories per day etc and throwing up their arms in mock horror about the "obesity crisis" makes me feel quite alarmed. If you were struggling with self-image or had a history of eating disorders they could be very damaging.

There is a huge social problem about obesity and overweight for sure but society won't win that game by inviting people to obsessively calorie count and shame others for fairly normal eating habits.