[tjogin]

Being overweight is unhealthy, it can't be done in a healthy way; not in the long term.

While it is possible for an overweight person to not have any of the common health problems associated with being overweight, that is temporary. If you are overweight, you will develop those health problems, it's just a matter of time.

It's basically like smoking and cancer; not all smokers have cancer or get cancer, but there is no such thing as smoking in a healthy way, and if you do it, then the best way to get healthier and to prevent developing health problems in the future is to stop doing it.

Some people can be overweight without developing health problems for a long time, even for a decade or two, but it's just a matter of time. Reducing your bodyweight is easily the best way to improve your health, and to make sure you don't develop health problems in the future.

And, vice versa, many of the things we associate with bad health don't become health problems at all for people who stay lean. Food that we know to have strong correlations with bad health, like eating red meat, sodium, cholesterol, etc, are only really problematic if you also over eat.

Exercise is great, it's terrific, but not over eating is much more important. The saying is true, "you can't outrun a bad diet".

[vilmosi]

>>> but there is no such thing as smoking in a healthy way

But there is a way to be overweight in a healthy. Basically everyone at the gym is overweight (officially anyway) because of their muscle mass.

>>> Exercise is great, it's terrific, but not over eating is much more important.

True. But there is a difference between over eating and under eating. I never said we should over eat, I just don't agree with under eating.

[tjogin]

No, having muscle doesn't make you overweight, no matter how much of it you have. The word overweight means to have excess fat, specifically.

Im not sure what you mean by under eating, but eating fewer calories than you spend is the only way to lose fat, other than surgery.

[vilmosi]

>>> The word overweight means to have excess fat, specifically.

Dictionary definition "above a weight considered normal or desirable."

The WHO definition "a BMI greater than or equal to 25 is overweight"

Not sure what definition you use, most gym-heads are technically overweight.

But discussing semantics is not the topic here.

[tjogin]

Not being able to understand the difference between excess muscle and fat is not semantics.

BMI is a tool applied to populations, used on individuals it can be very inaccurate, which is why nobody does it outside of blogs and magazines.

[vilmosi]

The term "overweight" does not differentiate between muscle and fat, plain and simple. You're wrong.

[dragonwriter]

> The term "overweight" does not differentiate between muscle and fat, plain and simple. You're wrong.

You're wrong. The typical diagnostic method for overweight and obesity (BMI) does not differentiate between muscle and fat, because mechanisms that do are too expensive/complex for the use, but the term, in fact, does.

At their most basic, the words “overweight” and “obesity” are ways to describe having too much body fat. [0]

Overweight and obesity are defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health. [1]

[0] http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesit...

[1] http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en/