thisisthinprivilege:youbothkickedoffyourshoes:-teesa-:2.2.15In most of the country, you can still fi

thisisthinprivilege:youbothkickedoffyourshoes:-teesa-:2.2.15In most of the country, you can still fire someone for being obese. And then when you’re unemployed, you’re likely to gain more weight, making it harder to find a job. in america what does it mean to be overweight vs average-sized? because most of america is overweight right? and averages are like an average of across the board right? i’m so confusedWhat people think they mean by “average” is “normal” on the BMI scale. Mostly people have no fucking clue what that looks like, and their guesses are all over the place, ranging from “underweight” to “obese”, depending on both the observer and the person their judging, because the scale is totally divorced from reality* and because weight doesn’t “look like” a single thing, it’s fucking weight. It’s a measurement of the force of gravity acting on matter.So yes, the actual average, in terms of mean, median or mode, is overweight or obese according to the BMI.Here, look at the BMI Project to see a few ways in which any given BMI looks.*The BMI scale was originally supposed to be actuarial. The “normal” weight range was supposed to be the range that lived the longest. Now, it was fucked up to start with for various reasons that we’ve gone into before here and I won’t bother with again, but it was never ever meant to be a measure of individual health. Statisticians were supposed to see what weights the people who lived the longest were, and peg “normal” weight to that figure, reexamining it periodically, because that’s how actuarial tables work. Then people took it into their heads to use it as a measure of health, something it has never been and is utterly useless for because it takes into account absolutely nothing but weight and height. THEN, they went and moved the “normal” range down into what used to be “underweight,” not because of a demographic shift, but because of lobbying by the weight loss industry. Now the people who have the greatest life expectancy are in the “overweight” and “obese” ranges. So not only was it’s original intent and design fucked up, not only is it being used for something it was never meant to be used for and is in fact utterly useless for, it is now actively counterproductive and factually incorrect even for that.-MG -- source link

More pics about