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by goda90 2215 days ago
"Adipose tissue (“belly fat”) appears to absorb but not release vitamin D. If we want to do some armchair hypothesizing, perhaps people historically used to lose weight in winter, which definitely would release the stored vitamin D just when it was needed."

This is an interesting idea. It's believed our bodies get fat to ensure we have energy when food is scarce. It makes sense that we'd also want to have vitamins available too.
1 comments
Izkata 2215 days ago
An addition to that: Over a decade ago (so unfortunately I have no reference, this just stuck with me for how against common sense it was) I remember reading that being overweight but not obese correlated with good health better than being "normal" weight did. Their theory was that if being sick made it so you were less hungry, you could still get an energy boost by using up fat reserves and be able to fight off illness faster.

This sounds like a much more specific and more testable version of that theory.

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rvp-x 2213 days ago
I assume this is a related newspaper article: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families...

Important to note it refers to overweight (might be referred to as "a little chubby"), not obese.

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balnaphone 2214 days ago
There is a problem with the BMI [1] calculation, which is the standard measure used to determine "normal" weight, in that it is dimensionally incorrect. The BMI calculation gives results that are appropriate for those around 5'6" (168cm) in height. The units are in kg/m^2.

The Ponderal Index [2] (AKA the "Corpulence Index") gives values that work for any height, with units in kg/m^3. If you are a young child or over 6 feet tall, you might find the PI/CI works better for you.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/bmi/adult_bmi/en...

[2] https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/ponderal-index

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anonuser123456 2215 days ago
>I remember reading that being overweight but not obese correlated with good health better than being "normal" weight did.

This is mostly selection bias. Society is so fat that being normal / underweight is correlated with sickness/disease.

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