Reduced weight seems obviously helpful if you have bad knees or some other joint problems.
“Seems” is the operative word. There are a fair number of people who say that losing weight helps their knee and/or hip joints.
However, I’ve also read accounts by people who found that losing weight didn’t help, but getting medical attention for specific problems did.
Ragen Chastain, a fat athlete, has found that her knees are successfully treated by being given the attention and treatment they’d get if a thin person had the same knee problems.
I didn’t downvote, but “Ragen Chastain, a fat athlete, has found that her knees are successfully treated by being given the attention and treatment they’d get if a thin person had the same knee problems” is not relevant to the discussion. I’m aware that it’s pretty common for doctors to suggest weight loss as a sole solution when this is inappropriate and other treatment is needed. But by “helpful” I did not mean “sufficient” or “a complete cure” or anything like that, or even “helpful in all possible particular types of joint problems”, and I think this should have been clear from a reasonably charitable reading of my comment.
That losing weight will help joint problems seems obvious, not just to doctors, but to the general public—I’ve talked with people who don’t seek other care for joint problems because they assume that weight loss is the one correct solution.
The belief that weight loss is the one and only approach can occasionally be deadly. The comments to the Chastain article include an account of a woman whose doctor told her that her back pain was caused by her being fat. The bone cancer wasn’t noticed in time.
You did say “seems helpful” rather than “the one and only cure”, but I’m honestly not sure how careful I should have been. It does seem reasonable to me to point it out when something that commonly seems reasonable is actually not reliably true, especially when the stakes are high.
The stakes aren’t usually life and death, but years of pain from a joint problem isn’t a small thing.
“I once even had a doctor prescribe blood pressure medication before my blood pressure was taken.” Sorry, but that’s not very believable. At best it’s a self-serving uncorroborated statement.
By the way, I don’t think there’s much rhyme or reason to a lot of the upvoting and downvoting which goes on here.
Reduced weight seems obviously helpful if you have bad knees or some other joint problems. As for general overall health, I haven’t a clue.
“Seems” is the operative word. There are a fair number of people who say that losing weight helps their knee and/or hip joints.
However, I’ve also read accounts by people who found that losing weight didn’t help, but getting medical attention for specific problems did.
Ragen Chastain, a fat athlete, has found that her knees are successfully treated by being given the attention and treatment they’d get if a thin person had the same knee problems.
Why the down votes?
The comment doesn’t seem especially different to me than my usual.
I didn’t downvote, but “Ragen Chastain, a fat athlete, has found that her knees are successfully treated by being given the attention and treatment they’d get if a thin person had the same knee problems” is not relevant to the discussion. I’m aware that it’s pretty common for doctors to suggest weight loss as a sole solution when this is inappropriate and other treatment is needed. But by “helpful” I did not mean “sufficient” or “a complete cure” or anything like that, or even “helpful in all possible particular types of joint problems”, and I think this should have been clear from a reasonably charitable reading of my comment.
That losing weight will help joint problems seems obvious, not just to doctors, but to the general public—I’ve talked with people who don’t seek other care for joint problems because they assume that weight loss is the one correct solution.
The belief that weight loss is the one and only approach can occasionally be deadly. The comments to the Chastain article include an account of a woman whose doctor told her that her back pain was caused by her being fat. The bone cancer wasn’t noticed in time.
You did say “seems helpful” rather than “the one and only cure”, but I’m honestly not sure how careful I should have been. It does seem reasonable to me to point it out when something that commonly seems reasonable is actually not reliably true, especially when the stakes are high.
The stakes aren’t usually life and death, but years of pain from a joint problem isn’t a small thing.
I didn’t downvote your comment, but I would point out that Ragen Chastain is not a very credible source.
For example, check out this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwzz6STWp8g
“I once even had a doctor prescribe blood pressure medication before my blood pressure was taken.” Sorry, but that’s not very believable. At best it’s a self-serving uncorroborated statement.
By the way, I don’t think there’s much rhyme or reason to a lot of the upvoting and downvoting which goes on here.