Kinobody: The Good, the Bad and the "Hollywood" Physique Illusion

[EiFit91]

Found this clip interesting. Seems that more and more youtubers are jumping on the "being too lean is not healthy and not sustainable" train.

Maybe the fitness community will finally enter into a phase where they promote a healthy and balanced body composition instead of past extremes (GOMAD/starting strength vs the get shredded, starve yourself on the other end).

[EliKoehn]

What would you personally define as healthy and balanced, given the various physique and fitness goals out there? It seems that that would entail avoiding either of conspicuous extremes which satisfy the desire for clout and notoriety, so I personally doubt that it will trend as an iconic goal.

[EiFit91]

What would you personally define as healthy and balanced, given the various physique and fitness goals out there? It seems that that would entail avoiding either of conspicuous extremes which satisfy the desire for clout and notoriety, so I personally doubt that it will trend as an iconic goal.

I'd say healthy is anything in the 12-20% range and where to stay in that range should depend on i) one's own preferences and ii) one's "set point" or where you personally feel good and perform well. I guess some would say 12-18% but I don't think there's any evidence to suggest staying at 20% is unhealthy.

And then when you go above 20% you're less and less healthy and some can get away with it more than others. And creeping above 20% is probably increasing one's health risk just a little bit but then the health risk increases more and more the more BF% creeps up.

And maybe as you age it's better to carry a little extra fat, IDK.

Also some may feel completely fine at 10% bodyfat but they'll be outliers and I bet it's always better from a health perspective to be 12% than 10%.

[Strawng]

Also some may feel completely fine at 10% bodyfat but they'll be outliers and I bet it's always better from a health perspective to be 12% than 10%.

Yea I think, even in this case, that "feeling fine" is different than feeling at your best. Hell, I thought I "felt fine" a few weeks before was hospitalized for anorexia. At 9-10%ish, almost across the board, there's gonna be some loss of strength and/or energy/testosterone. 12% is gonna be more optimal for just about everyone.

[Strawng]

What would you personally define as healthy and balanced, given the various physique and fitness goals out there? It seems that that would entail avoiding either of conspicuous extremes which satisfy the desire for clout and notoriety, so I personally doubt that it will trend as an iconic goal.

I think you're right, but we are living in a weird world now. I think it's possible having a great physique is losing it's "coolness" factor, just given how oversaturated all the Fitstagram chit is. There's also the "dad bod" phenomenon (yes it's a real thing), Health At Every Size, and some other woke things that are a not-insignificant part of society now. "Diet" has become a dirty word, and as Americans get fatter and fatter, it only stands to reason that our physique ideals will change too. I've heard talk about "thin privilege" and "people in larger bodies" to ever to fat people as part of common language. The other day, I heard someone say that dieters or people with eating disorders were "supporting white supremacy" because thinness is the "white man's ideal". It's all fuking nonsense, but with ideas like that floating around, I don't think we’re too far from a world where being fat is "fighting the power". Of course we mostly just have an overcorrection now with morbidly obese women on the cover of magazines, but I could see there being a reactionary preference down the line for more natural men and women.

[air2fakie]

IMO health can't be judged from a bf% perspective, it's just one of many factors to consider. Plenty of lean, muscular dudes are in crap cardio condition, and there are plenty of bodybuilders out there in peak visual shape with serious underlying health issues.

[paulinkansas]

peak visual shape with serious underlying health issues.

Jim Fixx. A lot of you younger 'tards don't know who he is.

[Strawng]

Jim Fixx. A lot of you younger 'tards don't know who he is.

I just awared myself. Interdasting. There's always too much of a good thing.

[AdamWW]

Yea I think, even in this case, that "feeling fine" is different than feeling at your best. Hell, I thought I "felt fine" a few weeks before was hospitalized for anorexia. At 9-10%ish, almost across the board, there's gonna be some loss of strength and/or energy/testosterone. 12% is gonna be more optimal for just about everyone.

Similar for me... I can exist perpetually at 9-10%, but life sucks.

Existing at 12-15% feels great to me... not much difference hovering in that range at all. Even at 16-17% I feel totally fine, just less agile than I am at 12-15%.

Once I approach 20%, I start to feel less flexible, don't move as well... sometimes get overheated... and my appetite turns to crap.

[EliKoehn]

I think you're right, but we are living in a weird world now. I think it's possible having a great physique is losing it's "coolness" factor, just given how oversaturated all the Fitstagram chit is. There's also the "dad bod" phenomenon (yes it's a real thing), Health At Every Size, and some other woke things that are a not-insignificant part of society now. "Diet" has become a dirty word, and as Americans get fatter and fatter, it only stands to reason that our physique ideals will change too. I've heard talk about "thin privilege" and "people in larger bodies" to ever to fat people as part of common language. The other day, I heard someone say that dieters or people with eating disorders were "supporting white supremacy" because thinness is the "white man's ideal". It's all fuking nonsense, but with ideas like that floating around, I don't think we’re too far from a world where being fat is "fighting the power". Of course we mostly just have an overcorrection now with morbidly obese women on the cover of magazines, but I could see there being a reactionary preference down the line for more natural men and women.

Yeah, I don't know how much of it has to do with compensation for obesity (though I'm not denying that trend, as far as it goes), but I do think most of this is a simple function of living in the post-industrial first world. Basically 80% of jobs are the utilization of basic reasoning and problem-solving skills applied to computers and machines which do all of the lifting and remembering. Despite all of the fancy and inflated pedigrees for various desk jobs which exist, the majority of them mostly entail simply utilizing some kind of basic skillset alongside some rudimentary proficiency with Microsoft Office. The other 20% are some ratio of the truly skilled STEM professionals on the one hand, and hard laborers on the other, who are nevertheless still a rarity. The majority of basically everyone else lives in so much leisure that most of us don't even know what to do with our lives except pursue some kind of physique image or obtain some arbitrary strength or fitness goal. I'm not even saying that that's necessarily wrong in this circumstance, but these concerns and trends almost certainly wouldn't exist in a world where hard labor was the norm. I think we have a massive "now what?" existential phenomenon of boredom and purposelessness, which, while always there to some extent, is greatly exacerbated by a general lack of struggle to meet basic needs.

The other side of the coin, of course, is that most of us do have the opportunity to pursue art, hobbies, and rewarding skills previously afforded only to the social elite, which is nothing to complain about, IMO, beyond recognizing that it comes with a territory foreign to our historic sense of fulfillment as humans. Everything being on the tap all the time really is a problem for us, though, which is manifesting in a lot of ways. I think this is simply one of them, more so than as a cope for obesity.

Just my two cents, though.