COVID and obesity

[Sarcelle]

There seems to be a link to obesity and the likelihood of surviving the virus. Full disclaimer, just saw this on a Sarah Vine article on the Fail's website. If that is true, as we are the fattest in Europe, that may account for our record numbers of deaths. It will be more complicated than that, but it will be a large factor.

I am overweight (not obese). I lost 2 stone a few years ago and it has slowly crept back on - about 7 pounds of it. (I never reached my goal weight at that time.) This virus, the threat of it, has made me want to step up the weightloss and fitness. I need to lose approx 19 pounds to get to my goal weight. Even those 7 pounds has made me feel sluggish and un energetic.

I am wondering if this crisis will spur people on to lose the weight for health reasons. Could this be a real impetus for changing our bad habits for good. I think lockdown will leave people fatter or fitter and initially I was heading towards fatter, but I have pulled back and am now at the same weight I was pre lockdown, still overweight but without any new pounds added.

This is a good listen on this issue:

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000htw2

Then if anyone dares to counter their argument they do a Daily Fail sad face and say "but i was only saying, poor me, I'm allowed an opinion, after all I am fat too" etc.

Feelingverylazytoday. I think you've summed me up. I don't have any emotional issues causing me to overeat, I've just allowed the weight to creep on gradually over the last few years because I enjoy food and drink and eating out. And I'm getting older.

It's no-ones fault but my own.

I think this thread seems to have rubbed someone up the wrong way, perhaps for personal reasons. Everyone else has taken it at face value. It is a medical fact that being fat/obese/overweight - and yes I do fit in one of those categories myself - is detrimental to health, and a lot of people have taken/will take the opportunity now to do something about it. Me included. It's not compulsory.

There are no sad faces, just a mardy one down thread because some people do not like to accept that being overweight is in the main our own fault and it's is largely in our gift to do something about it.

It's not your fault OP. The truth hurts, the statistics are spelling it out and it will probably take a while for some people to accept.

I don't think it is as clear that being overweight (not obese) is bad with regard to certain illnesses. As I say, the last stats I saw, which may not be the most recent if more have come out in the last day or two, indicated that overweight people, but those with a bmi of under 30, had better outcomes than those who were not overweight. I don't know why.

Can you link to those stats Inkpaperstars, haven't heard that.

Better outcomes for those with BMI 25-30. Carrying a little excess baggage may be protective. When you are very unwell having fat stores is probably a benefit. Energy stores to help you fight infection when your unable to eat. But over a certain amount of store fat negates the benefit.

Any link?

No luck on google.

Just asked DP to send me the link Holly, it is icnarc but I can't open it on this device.

As I said I don't know what the latest figures show, the difference between all the groups was not that massive to be honest.

www.icnarc.org/DataServices/Attachments/Download/f48efee2-d38b-ea11-9125-00505601089b

Page 10 and page 19 probably the most relevant at a glance.

However, it may be a bit skewed in that those dragging down the not overweight group stats may be underweight, and I don't think this is age adjusted so hard to know what it means.

Page 10 seems to indicate though that not many severely underweight are included. It seems to suggest that in those critically ill in the first place bmi range corresponds to range in general population. But without seeing adjusted for age and gender it is hard to know what to make of it.

Table 3 may also be relevant.

From next week they are going to have a big sample to do multivariate analysis, according to DP who knows what that means. It means rather than for example saying that men are more likely to die than women, they can adjust for age/gender/race/whatever data they have, and suggest what impact various factors have if other factors are held constant.

Edit...big enough sample,

To be honest it does look at bit worse for the overweight now the latest data is included, but the difference seems fairly small at this point. I expect that when adjusted for age it may get starker, but I am just not remotely equipped to interpret it so will have to wait and see hat the experts say.

Thanks for that Ink.

Of course, there are lots of reasons why people are over weight and obese. It must be said that our eating habits and lifestyle influence a lot of peoples weight problems. It's not all one reason.

I was watching Paul Hollywood in Japan the other day. Apparently Japan is the healthiest nation on earth and Okinawa was the healthiest city n Japan. That is, until the Americans opened an airbase and brought fast food into the area. Now Okinawans have an obesity problem.

In the UK a lot of middle aged people eat like they have always done and drink quite a lot. They were fit and slim in their teens, 20's and 30's and wake up one day in their 40's and ask themselves why they are suddenly 2 stone over weight. It creeps on pound by pound. I'm in this category.

I've not been able to find it again, but there was a study that came out of China couple of months ago that suggested that compared to people with a BMI lower than 24, the risks of COVID roughly doubled if your BMI was 24 - 28 and roughly tripled if above 28.

Powerslide, I just did a quick google and it said a normal BMI for women was 18-24.9 and then you have up to 28 which is overweight and then obese. Seems like that study was in line with this.

If this is the case then, I now know that I need to go online, work out a healthy BMI and aim for this as I am overweight, possibly into obese. TBH no one thinks I am fat, but Ive always been really heavy. Even at a size 10, my BMI is still around 25ish.

Perhaps being overweight/ obese now seriously needs to be tackled. It does seem to be becoming more apparent that it affects our health in general. About 18 months ago I went to a private menopause doctor as I was having terrible symptoms and the first thing she did was measure my BMI. At the time it was about 25 and she was OK with that, but if it had been more I think she would have told me to bring it down.

I'm 2 month post partum, still struggling with my csection recovery, have high blood pressure(pregnancy related) amd BMI of 34, so in the obese category. I had horrendous SPD during my last few month and it's still here. Because of it I've basically been unable to walk since December, and so I'm incredibly unfit and get out of breath with walking 10 minutes. Until I've recovered better I really can't see there's much I can do to help my lungs.
I'm pretty worried about catching it as I don't think I'll manage well at all. It does make me wonder how many other pregnant or post natal woman might be in the same boat as me.