I feel a little confused about the circular definitions phenomenon. Take this one: Being overweight is bad. It's bad because at these high values of BMI many people start experiencing health issues and appearing less attractive in the mirror. And that's why we call these high BMI values OVERweight.
I feel a little confused about the circular definitions phenomenon. Take this one: Being overweight is bad. It's bad because at these high values of BMI many people start experiencing health issues and appearing less attractive in the mirror. And that's why we call these high BMI values OVERweight.
I can see the circularity, but also that it seems reasonable. If the cutoff point of overweight would be placed at some other point on the BMI scale, e.g. where no-one's having health issues yet, or where everyone's already long past feeling healthy, then it wouldn't make sense.
I'm not disputing that being overweight is (eventually) unhealthy, or that you have to pick SOME numbers and they're gonna be somewhat arbitrary.
I'm talking about proposed mechanisms/causes, and solutions here. E.g. if you say whole foods are healthy and I ask why, and you say because they make you lose weight, and I ask why they make you lose weight, and you say because they're whole.
That's circular with no detour. If you add a proxy or accounting tautology in the middle, it now has a detour. You can add as many detours as you want, but at the end of the day, it has no explanatory power.
For your BMI example it would go like this:
Why is being overweight unhealthy? Because it means you have a high BMI. How does it mean you have a high BMI? Because the BMI is defined by your weight (and a static variable, your height).
The BMI does not explain WHY your are overweight, or why it's unhealthy, it's just a measure of being overweight.
The problems are the vagueness in these descriptions. A person being overweight is as accurate as saying a car is uneconomical.
The reason why it is classified as overweight or uneconomical are what matters.
If you were overweight because you have a lot of muscle, that's usually not considered a problem.
If you're overweight because you have too much fat that normally is. But if you were overweight because you have lots of fat cells and the cells are very small, this is not considered a problem. Whereas if you have fewer fat cells but they're very large this can be a problem.
I feel a little confused about the circular definitions phenomenon. Take this one: Being overweight is bad. It's bad because at these high values of BMI many people start experiencing health issues and appearing less attractive in the mirror. And that's why we call these high BMI values OVERweight.
I can see the circularity, but also that it seems reasonable. If the cutoff point of overweight would be placed at some other point on the BMI scale, e.g. where no-one's having health issues yet, or where everyone's already long past feeling healthy, then it wouldn't make sense.
I'm not disputing that being overweight is (eventually) unhealthy, or that you have to pick SOME numbers and they're gonna be somewhat arbitrary.
I'm talking about proposed mechanisms/causes, and solutions here. E.g. if you say whole foods are healthy and I ask why, and you say because they make you lose weight, and I ask why they make you lose weight, and you say because they're whole.
That's circular with no detour. If you add a proxy or accounting tautology in the middle, it now has a detour. You can add as many detours as you want, but at the end of the day, it has no explanatory power.
For your BMI example it would go like this:
Why is being overweight unhealthy? Because it means you have a high BMI. How does it mean you have a high BMI? Because the BMI is defined by your weight (and a static variable, your height).
The BMI does not explain WHY your are overweight, or why it's unhealthy, it's just a measure of being overweight.
The problems are the vagueness in these descriptions. A person being overweight is as accurate as saying a car is uneconomical.
The reason why it is classified as overweight or uneconomical are what matters.
If you were overweight because you have a lot of muscle, that's usually not considered a problem.
If you're overweight because you have too much fat that normally is. But if you were overweight because you have lots of fat cells and the cells are very small, this is not considered a problem. Whereas if you have fewer fat cells but they're very large this can be a problem.