Nogale: That's still pretty heavy. In January 2010, I was about 213 pounds at 5'7". (Female). That's a BMI of 33.5.

/ Since then have dropped to 167 (BMI 26), lost 4 clothing sizes, and taken up distance running (completed two half marathons and plan to run a full marathon within a year.)

I know nothing but if that's true you should completely ignore the BMI BS. You're kicking ass! Find a different tape measure than BMI, like, yourself! Who better to judge? Good luck on the marathon.

abhorrent1: You have to give maternity leave

You have to give unpaid, FMLA leave, if your company meets certain requirements.

Fun fact: There is no federal employment law requiring companies to offer compensated sick or vacation leave time.

State laws and union contracts may vary.

BMI stands for Better Metric Indicatoravailable

mr0x: pippi longstocking: [musclegainreview.com image 500x333]

BMI is pure BS, probably like their treatments.
What if you look like this guy? I bet his BMI is close if not over 35.

He is probably around 30 BMI.
Body builders in their on-season have about 30 BMI and off season around 32 BMI.

Anyway body-builders are a small segment of the US population and have their own metric that considers their waist size etc.

Natural and amateur maybe. Body building at a pro level has become a farce. Jay Cutler is under six foot and three hundred pounds. That HGH gut adds some pounds.

badhatharry: swahnhennessy: I can't remember the last time I saw someone who was fat working in a hospital. It's been years and years, at least. Like seeing nurses smoke.

You'll see many doctors and nurses that smoke if you can find the secret smoking area. Every hospital has one.

I went out and had a smoke with my shrink once. Best doctor I ever met. He established more trust with me in that 15 minutes than other docs have in months.

david_gaithersburg: Lying to yourself isn't going to help. Get a hyperactive dog and start walking it twice per day. I used to be like you. Get a pedometer and slowly work up to 10,000 steps per day. Take it slow, one step at a time. It took me months to get up to the 10k mark.

I actually have a body weight percentage of about 10%. I was just saying that's the weight I would have to have for my body to have a BMI of 35.

body *fat* percentage

Nogale: That's still pretty heavy. In January 2010, I was about 213 pounds at 5'7". (Female). That's a BMI of 33.5.

/ Since then have dropped to 167 (BMI 26), lost 4 clothing sizes, and taken up distance running (completed two half marathons and plan to run a full marathon within a year.)

This is obviously working for now, but endurance exercise is far less efficient than say high intensity intervals, which you're probably now fit enough to do. Google them, they also increase your vo2 Max improving your distance time. If you simply just enjoy distance running, then stick with it.

Nogale: Oh, I just mentioned BMI because it was the criterion brought up in this thread. I know it's a highly problematic measurement and don't usually bother with it.

Good deal. I'm not a marathon runner and I only know two, but they don't seem to give a crap about numbers. They're competing against themselves.

Pkkk Mel: This is obviously working for now

Maybe she just like it, huh?

Bathia_Mapes: BMIs don't take muscle mass into account either. During his Mr Universe days, a BMI would have said that Arnold Schwarzenegger was overweight based on his muscle mass.

Could that be the point?? They don't want large people in a work environment where getting in the way or being able to move around in tight spaces is a problem. The ability to move around could be life or death.


//I'm okay with the BMI limit.

digitalpirate: The only thing that bothers me about this is that I *think* it's from a british news source and it's reinforcing stereotypes about Americans. They keep saying that Americans are fat and maybe we are, but at least we don't let ugly people on TV.

The article on the right claimed that 65% of Americans are obese, not just over weight. I find this hard to believe.

All I read was "Daily Mail" and already knew it was probably BS.

Medical professionals should lead by example. I don't approve of the usage of BMI since it's kinda crap, but a visual check to see whether the applicant is a fatass or not should do the trick.

/Physician, health thyself! Don't study years and years about health and then turn into the Michelin man.
//And certainly don't expect your patients to take you seriously when you council about weight loss, which just so happens to be an integral therapy for many chronic illnesses.

Mrtraveler01: All I read was "Daily Mail" and already knew it was probably BS.

I think this trumps every comment in this thread. All heated up over a Brit tabloid. Next headline "LiLo got pregnant in jail?"

shooosh: Mrtraveler01: All I read was "Daily Mail" and already knew it was probably BS.

I think this trumps every comment in this thread. All heated up over a Brit tabloid. Next headline "LiLo got pregnant in jail?"

Giggity.

eraser8: I'm shocked...SHOCKED...the "go be fat somewhere else" pic hasn't been posted yet.

D'oh! By 39 seconds...

KimNorth: They don't want large people in a work environment where getting in the way or being able to move around in tight spaces is a problem. The ability to move around could be life or death.

Did you RTFA? That didn't come up. AT ALL. It's all about appearances.

Mrtraveler01: shooosh: Mrtraveler01: All I read was "Daily Mail" and already knew it was probably BS.

I think this trumps every comment in this thread. All heated up over a Brit tabloid. Next headline "LiLo got pregnant in jail?"

Giggity.

"The New LiLo Is Red Again; Only Her Jailor Knows For Sure."

david_gaithersburg: For all of the Farkers who claim that BMI doesn't apply because they are giant athletes with massive amounts of bulging muscles. Try this new test:

Stand up.

Stand up straight.

Bend only your neck and look down.

Do you see Willie The One Eyed Wonder Worm?

No?

You're fat.

I'm gonna need a Venn diagram of people who Fark.com while naked, and people who Fark.com while at work.

I'm hovering right around 35 BMI, and while I recognize I'm fat, I'm nowhere near "needs a scooter at Walmart" fat. I'm 6'0 and depending on the day and hour, weigh between 250 and 260. I wear jeans with a 38 inch waist "under the belly" or 40 inch waist across the belly button.

A lot of men in my family, particularly on my father's side, carry their weight on their torso, no matter how much exercise they get. My father is a contractor. He spends all day carrying windows up ladders and other sorts of physical labor. Yet, he has a BMI of 33, and it's all around his stomach. His brother is the same way. When I was a teenager, I would run around playing sports 7 days a week from the time I got out of school until after the sun set. I was still fat, but I was keeping up in the games with all of my skinny friends.

Anyway, my point is, I'm not so horribly fat that comments such as this:
AcneVulgaris: But 35? That's pretty farking fat.

make any sense to me. While I am fat, I'm not so incredibly gross that I can't fit in my seats

Drop BMI, go by body fat percentage, bone density, muscle density, and hydration levels to see if someone is actually "fat" or not.

/4 hour body FTW
//yes, it does work

Haha! Guess they got sick of going after the smokers. I wonder who's next? Hopefully the drinkers, they suck more then anyone else.

Good lord, I was huge and my BMI was only 33.

NIXON YOU DOLT!!!!!: KimNorth: They don't want large people in a work environment where getting in the way or being able to move around in tight spaces is a problem. The ability to move around could be life or death.

Did you RTFA? That didn't come up. AT ALL. It's all about appearances.

No, I didn't read the farken article, as if this is fark get real!
Anyway it does not matter if they talked about it. It is a real issue and the only one that would make me agree with this BMI limit. I could otherwise care less what people look like, just as long as their fat azz can still save my life.

jls23: Good lord, I was huge and my BMI was only 33.

I know right I put in my weight when I was pregnant and swelled up like a balloon gaining 70 pounds and was at 34.

nymersic: batcookie:
You know, that's the second time someone's brought up an article mentioning this study, ...


Dude... admitted I didn't read through all of it to make sure Nature isn't just pulling our collective leg, but the article he mentioned cited its sources rather clearly, and nature.com appears to be hosting said study from the University of Alberta.

I was gonna post the link, but frankly, I'd rather you did the work yourself.

I apologize for interfering with your point, but I got curious about this and figured I'd share the results of my poking about. The study referenced in the originally linked article is: http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/v14/n5/full/oby2006106a.html (And it's publicly available - thanks NIH!)

The Nature study involved 73,531 Canadian adults between the ages of 20 and
59, selected from the Canadian Community Health Survey (a survey in 2000 and 2001 with a multistage stratified cluster design which purports to representatively cover 98% of Canadians over age 12, and had an 80% response rate - 130,880 respondents all told. Participants self-reported socioeconomic status, demographics, medical status, labor force participation, and height and weight.

The questions primarily used to determine their metrics were worded as follows:

"last week, did you work at a job or business (including part-time jobs, seasonal work, contract work, self-employment, baby-sitting and any other paid work, regardless of the number of hours worked)?"

and

"last week, did you have a job or business from which you were absent?"

They defined absenteeism as answering yes to the first one and to the second one, essentially.

They then built a logistic regression model, attempting to account for variables which are identified as comorbid with obesity, and which would impact workplace absenteeism. The details of that are probably a bit much to drop into a post here, but they summarize them as follows:

"The demographic and socio- economic
variables considered included age (20 to 29, 30 to
39, 40 to 49, and 50 to 59 years old), gender, ethnic origin,
region of residence, marital status, level of education, and
obesity-related comorbidities (type 2 diabetes, hyperten-
sion, heart disease, cancer, and stroke) (28 -31). Depression
was also considered and was defined as being present if the
probability of major depression was Ն80% based on the
Composite International Diagnostic Interview (32).

...

Composite International Diagnostic Interview (32).
Obesity was calculated from self-reported height and
weight and categorized according to the World Health Or-
ganization criteria (1,33) into Classes I to III (BMI, 30 to
34.9, 35 to 39.9, and Ն40 kg/m2, respectively). An alternate
classification considered those subjects with Class II obesity
or greater. To account for the non-equal probability of
selection in the CCHS due to the complex sampling design,
sample weights were applied to obtain population-based
estimates. All statistical tests were performed using SPSS
13.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL)."

They found (via bivariate analysis) a statistically significant reduction in the odds of workforce participation for individuals in all classes of obesity, even after accounting for the demographic, socioeconomic, and health charac-
teristic covariates listed above.

From their regression model for workforce participation (Table 3):
Class I obesity
OR (odds ratio): 0.94
CI (confidence interval): 0.89 to 0.99

Class II obesity
OR: 0.85
CI: 0.77 to 0.94

Class III obesity
OR: 0.66
CI: 0.57 to 0.78

Now I want to be clear that I'm not making any claims about laziness (which may or may not be related to workforce participation as defined in this study) or even saying that this study's results should be interpreted in the way the authors did. But it does seem to me that there's something here which calls for explanation and/or further investigation.

shooosh: Pkkk Mel: This is obviously working for now

Maybe she just like it, huh?

Maybe you should read the end.

Nogale: Pkkk Mel: Nogale: That's still pretty heavy. In January 2010, I was about 213 pounds at 5'7". (Female). That's a BMI of 33.5.

/ Since then have dropped to 167 (BMI 26), lost 4 clothing sizes, and taken up distance running (completed two half marathons and plan to run a full marathon within a year.)

This is obviously working for now, but endurance exercise is far less efficient than say high intensity intervals, which you're probably now fit enough to do. Google them, they also increase your vo2 Max improving your distance time. If you simply just enjoy distance running, then stick with it.

I started out doing high-intensity cross-training, working with a personal trainer friend who is a big believer in weightlifting. Two months later, I moved to a different city and wasn't working, so I had to find a free form of exercise - hence running. I liked the progress and kept it up. I alternate distance runs with stairs and uphill sprints.

Oh okay. Sprints are fantastic anaerobic intervals. I skip to cut weight for competition. Also free and a great exercise. Well aside from a seven dollar rope.

starsrift: I'm gonna need a Venn diagram of people who Fark.com while naked, and people who Fark.com while at work.

I would, but it would give you nightmares.

I lived in Victoria for 15 years and worked at the hospital down the street from Citizens. With all honesty I can say that Victoria is a backwards-ass country town that thinks it is a big city and continues to draw attention to itself with bigotry and racism.

For instance: Indian Cardiologists (new window)

My ex-wife still lives in Victoria, and her mom works at Citizens, so there is an even greater hate for that place. My ex-wife got the lawn tractor in the divorce, which adds to my disgruntification. Where was I going with this?

©

Stefanwulf: Now I want to be clear that I'm not making any claims about laziness (which may or may not be related to workforce participation as defined in this study) or even saying that this study's results should be interpreted in the way the authors did. But it does seem to me that there's something here which calls for explanation and/or further investigation.

Indeed. If they're not going to factor laziness in the equation then how are all the people in this thread or in any way Farking at work to be measured?

Everything is bigger in Texas...

Rat: I lived in Victoria for 15 years and worked at the hospital down the street from Citizens. With all honesty I can say that Victoria is a backwards-ass country town that thinks it is a big city and continues to draw attention to itself with bigotry and racism.

For instance: Indian Cardiologists (new window)

My ex-wife still lives in Victoria, and her mom works at Citizens, so there is an even greater hate for that place. My ex-wife got the lawn tractor in the divorce, which adds to my disgruntification. Where was I going with this?

©

We obviously need to burn Victoria to the ground.

I just thought it was the last legal way they could discriminate against black (read "sassy") nurses. Because we know all the fat black nurses are horrid biatches and the skinny ones are all pleasant as punch.

Whar problem?

trekkiecougar:
I've worked hard to plump up my hereditary flat asian ass.

Seriously, I have a tear in my eye. Thankyouverymuch for that vision, I'm putting it under my pillow tonight.

©

trekkiecougar: I think I read somewhere that a man carrying weight in that area is at a high risk of heart/circulatory problems. How would a man go about losing that torso girth? I have a loved one that I'm worried about.

I was "that guy" for the better part of a decade. Tried to excercise, walk during breaks at work, do more "Active" stuff on the weekends, etc., all to no avail. I threw my hands up and said "fark it, I'm just big." I finally figured out how to do it. You ready? You may want to sit down for this. It's an ancient Irish secret, and it's quite shocking.......

quit yer feckin' eatin'.

I placed myself on a well balanced 2000 calorie/day diet (3 meals, 3 snacks). And by balanced, I mean you balance fat, carbs, an total calories. Still got to eat "tasty" food...burgers, steaks, and so on.......want to hear the really shocking part? About 2 weeks into it I was sitting at work one day and realized....I was hungry.....a feeling I had literally not felt in YEARS. (My brain would tell me I was "hungry"....I was really just bored/frustrated/eating out of habit.) I used a cool menu planning tool I found online. But you have to change your lifestyle in terms of food habits forever.

I changed NOTHING else about my lifestyle, dropped 70 pounds in about 3 months.

Rat: I'm putting it under my pillow tonight.

Fapping by osmosis?

KimNorth: Anyway it does not matter if they talked about it. It is a real issue and the only one that would make me agree with this BMI limit. I could otherwise care less what people look like, just as long as their fat azz can still save my life.

And I don't think there would be such outrage over this policy if they had framed it that way..much like cops and firefighters/medics are expected to be in somewhat decent physical shape because their job requires it and lives can depend on it....

Except they didn't frame it that way. This policy was solely because they think their patients expect healthcare professionals to "look" a certain way...

Well hell....I for one expect all of my nurses to look like NFL cheerleaders, with the ability to suck a golf ball through a garden hose. I demand a local hospital update it's hiring practices accordingly to meet my expectations.

trekkiecougar: jack21221: I'm hovering right around 35 BMI, and while I recognize I'm fat, I'm nowhere near "needs a scooter at Walmart" fat. I'm 6'0 and depending on the day and hour, weigh between 250 and 260. I wear jeans with a 38 inch waist "under the belly" or 40 inch waist across the belly button.

A lot of men in my family, particularly on my father's side, carry their weight on their torso, no matter how much exercise they get. My father is a contractor. He spends all day carrying windows up ladders and other sorts of physical labor. Yet, he has a BMI of 33, and it's all around his stomach. His brother is the same way. When I was a teenager, I would run around playing sports 7 days a week from the time I got out of school until after the sun set. I was still fat, but I was keeping up in the games with all of my skinny friends.

Anyway, my point is, I'm not so horribly fat that comments such as this:
AcneVulgaris: But 35? That's pretty farking fat.

make any sense to me. While I am fat, I'm not so incredibly gross that I can't fit in my seats


I think I read somewhere that a man carrying weight in that area is at a high risk of heart/circulatory problems. How would a man go about losing that torso girth? I have a loved one that I'm worried about.

I ask because I don't know much about losing weight, it's something I've never had to worry about, even after having two kids. I'm petite (5 ' 1 ") but healthy with decent muscle mass, not skin and bones. I lift weights, run and do Polynesian dance (and have a healthy, vigorous sex life heehee) so I eat healthy in order to keep up my stamina and my weight (don't like dropping below 115 lbs, it affects my rear: I've worked hard to plump up my hereditary flat asian ass).

There are so many weight loss programs out there that I simply don't know what to suggest, so I'd like to know what my fellow Farkers have found to work best for men.

There's no such thing as spot fat loss, any suggested program for trimming an area is not valid.

d_the_sandman: According to TFA, it's more about "personal appearance" than overall healthiness. Which in the big scheme of things is not much different than having an official policy of not hiring folks with visible tattoos. I don't agree with either, but it's more understandable on a social level than actually using the BMI scale as a scientific way of gauging obesity, which everyone knows is bunk.

That must be why it correlates so well with hypertension and poor self rated health, right?

Is this where I casually mention that I'm an American with a 20.5 BMI? No? Okay then...

//don't eat me, I'm full of poop

Eh, I live in Michigan where this shiat is illegal so I'm being a real kick, etc., etc.