I consider myself to be “thin” even though my BMI of 24 puts me close to the official line for “overweight.”
Aha! I think we’ve found the main source of our disagreement here, and it’s purely terminology. Totally agree that maintaining a BMI around 24 is a reasonable, broadly-supported aspiration (all other factors being equal), particularly if you’re younger than middle age.
this seems unlikely—at least as the primary factor
Agreed it’s probably not the largest effect, but I do think there’s good reason to think there is an effect going that way. There seems to be a growing amount of evidence that low socio-economic status is bad for mortality, mostly indirectly (makes you more likely to do things like smoking, eating a diet with less fresh fruit and vegetables, etc) but also directly (low social status makes you die sooner), although of course separating that out of any naturalistic data is hard. (See e.g. this, and the older Whitehall studies.)
There seems to be a growing amount of evidence that low socio-economic status is bad for mortality, mostly indirectly (makes you more likely to do things like smoking, eating a diet with less fresh fruit and vegetables, etc)
This is subject to the same cause and effect issues you alluded to earlier. It’s reasonable to hypothesize that worse-than-average impulse control is likely to result in both low socio-economic status and overweight/obesity.
Anyway, for my purposes it doesn’t really matter. The evidence is strong enough that at a minimum I’m willing to stake my health on the claim that it’s better for one’s health to avoid getting fat.
Aha! I think we’ve found the main source of our disagreement here, and it’s purely terminology. Totally agree that maintaining a BMI around 24 is a reasonable, broadly-supported aspiration (all other factors being equal), particularly if you’re younger than middle age.
Agreed it’s probably not the largest effect, but I do think there’s good reason to think there is an effect going that way. There seems to be a growing amount of evidence that low socio-economic status is bad for mortality, mostly indirectly (makes you more likely to do things like smoking, eating a diet with less fresh fruit and vegetables, etc) but also directly (low social status makes you die sooner), although of course separating that out of any naturalistic data is hard. (See e.g. this, and the older Whitehall studies.)
This is subject to the same cause and effect issues you alluded to earlier. It’s reasonable to hypothesize that worse-than-average impulse control is likely to result in both low socio-economic status and overweight/obesity.
Anyway, for my purposes it doesn’t really matter. The evidence is strong enough that at a minimum I’m willing to stake my health on the claim that it’s better for one’s health to avoid getting fat.