{"id":3472,"date":"2007-06-20T04:31:23","date_gmt":"2007-06-20T11:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/06\/20\/black-women-live-longer-if-theyre-overweight\/"},"modified":"2007-06-20T04:31:23","modified_gmt":"2007-06-20T11:51:11","slug":"black-women-live-longer-if-theyre-overweight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=3472","title":{"rendered":"Black Women Live Longest When They're "Overweight""},"content":{"rendered":"

Jill at Feministe<\/a> points out this Salon article<\/a> arguing that big “rumps” are endangering black women’s health. The article is offensive in any number of ways. But it’s this paragraph in particular which struck me:<\/p>\n

Recent press reports show why black women should be alarmed: More than half of us are obese \u2014 78 percent are considered overweight. And, according to the American Obesity Association, the pounds are not coming off easily, due to “cultural factors related to diet, exercise and weight among African-Americans.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Newsflash: There’s no such thing as a culture in which pounds do come off easily (at least, not in the long term). “Cultural factors” don’t make weight-loss diets hard; weight loss-diets are <\/em>hard, for the vast majority of fat people in any culture.<\/p>\n

The Centers for Disease Control finds that rates of […] premature death ((In addition to premature death, she also mentions higher rates of diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and cancer in black women. These are legitimate concerns, but there are better ways to help women with these problems than by saying that “overweight” women should become “normal” weight, a course of treatment that will in practice not be possible for the vast majority of “overweight” people.)) are higher among black women, and when we get these diseases, we\u2019re sicker than white women.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s true that black women live less long than white women, on average. (“Life expectancy for white women is 79.8 years; for black women, 74.7 years.”) ((“…for white men, 74.3 years; and for black men, 67.3 years.” Source<\/a>.)) But it’s simply a lie to claim that black women are dying younger because they’re overweight<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Here’s a table showing relative risk of death, by sex and by race. This table, which I’ve posted before<\/a>, comes from a study ((Adams, K., et al., Overweight, Obesity, and Mortality in a Large Prospective Cohort of Persons 50 to 71 Years Old. New England Journal of Medicine<\/em>, 2006. 355(8): p. 763-8. (Pdf link<\/a>.) )) which is frequently cited by those arguing that fat is deadly.<\/p>\n

But if we look at the details, we see that only for the very fattest black women — the outliers — is being overweight associated with higher mortality. What the statistics actually <\/em>show is that black women, more than anyone else, have an elevated risk of death if they\u2019re in the \u201cnormal weight\u201d category, and live longest if they\u2019re in the \u201coverweight\u201d category<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Relative<\/a><\/p>\n

The \u201cfat equals death\u201d hysteria in the media is dubious for anyone, but black women above all shouldn’t be taking it at face value. In fact, black women who manage to become “normal” weight may be damaging <\/em>their life expectancy. The knee-jerk belief in weight loss as the cure for most ills is bad advice for almost everyone, but it’s probably worse advice for black women than for any other demographic group.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the kicker: Womenshealth.gov reports that \u201ccompared with overweight white Americans, overweight black Americans are two to three times more likely to say their weight is average \u2014 even after they\u2019ve been told they are overweight or obese by a doctor<\/em> (emphasis added).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s<\/em> her “kicker”? This author is completely ignorant of even the basic meanings of terms like “average” and “overweight.” Being “average” and being “overweight” are not <\/em>mutually exclusive.<\/p>\n

“Overweight,” as most doctors now use the term, means having a BMI ((Body Mass Index — Wikipedia<\/a> has an explanation of what this is, if you don’t already know.)) between 25 and 30. As it happens, according to the most recent NHAMES survey — the most accurate survey of American’s weight and height yet done — the average American woman has a BMI of 28.2. ((The average American man has a BMI of 27.6. Source<\/a>.)) So being overweight is<\/em> average; the people this author sneers at for being ignorant have a firmer grasp of the facts than she does.<\/p>\n

Finally, even according to the mainstream medical establishment, what matters about fat is not only how much you have, but where the fat is located on your body. The least healthy place to have fat, according to mainstream medical thinking, is around your waist. Fat on the ass and thighs is, even according to mainstream medicine, relatively healthy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jill at Feministe points out this Salon article arguing that big “rumps” are endangering black women’s health. The article is offensive in any number of ways. But it’s this paragraph in particular which struck me: Recent press reports show why … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fat-fat-and-more-fat","category-race-racism-and-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3472\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}